What they were, What they are
by TheLuciferPerson
Summary: Gokudera has been through a lot of things - some sad, some happy, some downright traumatic. But, everything that has happened, Yamamoto is there to help alleviate some of that pain. Will it destroy both of them or will they make it through?
1. Gokudera does some growing up

**Hey people/readers!**

**For all of you who like 5980/ 8059, you might like this! I hope you do!**

**This story used to be called "Gokudera's Life Story," but I decided that the title was boring and ill-fitting with my actual story, so I changed it to "What they were, What they are," which will hopefully be a better received title by the public. **

**I also changed the summary to something which used to be like, "Gokudera has been thru a lot in his life and all that has made him who he is. This is his story" to the summary that it is now, which definitely is better I think as it shows the Gokudera and Yamamoto relationship which is the crux of my story.**

**(I recently edited the whole story, fixing the more obvious mistakes and adding a few points, but all in all, it's the exact same story as before.)**

"Some cookies, Hayato?" Bianchi came over to Gokudera, who was busily practicing piano in the music room. The notes from the piano, so elegantly extracted by Gokudera's slender, agile, and exact fingers, filled the room so that each note rang clear and echoed just enough to create a beautiful atmosphere.

"Uhm, well, not really. I'm not that hungry now. Besides, some of father's guests will be over and I even brushed my teeth for them. I'll pass." Gokudera wasn't irritated as of yet with his sister, Bianchi, to be rude as he usually was.

"You haven't had a snack for the whole day, and you're a growing kid, ya know. Besides, who's gonna care if you just brushed your teeth or not? Even father's not that picky."

Gokudera twitched his upper lip in annoyance at being called a kid, even though he really was only a seven year old child.

Bianchi, fearing that Gokudera would get angry and absolutely refuse to eat the cookies which she had made, quickly tried to sway him.

"Like I said, you are growing and are going to become a man. You want to be a good Mafioso when you've gotten there, don't you? So, eat up!"

Gokudera really didn't see how his sister made the impossible connection between cookies and Mafiosos, but he kept his comments to himself.

"Not just good, Bianchi, the best! I will be the best Mafiaso in history! You know that already. It's my lifelong dream that will never change, so you'd better get used to it."

Gokudera quipped in annoyance as he reluctantly took a single cookie from the tray. Anything to make his sister go away faster.

As Gokudera just shoved the cookie in his mouth and swallowed without even chewing, Bianchi grinned.

"Tastes pretty good for my first try, huh?"

Gokudera sarcastically looked up at her after wiping his mouth in a disdainful manner, directing a 'do-you-_really-_think-_that_' look at her.

Grimacing, he muttered, "Tastes… different from what Cook makes. Whatever, go away. I need to practice," before he turned his back completely on Bianchi.

"Sure thing, _little brother_." Bianchi smirked.

Something in Bianchi's voice made Gokudera look up from his sheet music and stare straight into her face. But when she merely smiled and walked away, Gokudera huffed in irritation and went back to practicing. Since he had limited time, he really threw himself into the music, drowning out everything else as his fingers manipulated the piano keys as perfectly as he would manipulate people when he was older.

But he still wasn't able to finish one piece of music properly before he heard the visitors coming. Damn it, he had been hoping to impress them with this one… ah well. Perhaps next time he would be allowed to prepare in time by the stupid people who surrounded him.

As his father opened the double doors of the music room to let his guests meet his son and enjoy Gokudera's musical skills, Gokudera stood up and bowed curtly but politely like the born and bred top-class Mafiaso he believed he was.

But as he began to greet the guests with the usual formalities, Gokudera's body started feeling very…different. Much the same as the cookies had tasted 'different'.

Having been tutored on more than one of the higher mechanisms of medicine, Gokudera knew instantly that he had been drugged. This feeling wasn't just the normal food-poisoning, this was the real deal.

He furiously thought. He hadn't eaten anything for the past five hours since his brunch. No drug would take this long to activate. He would have sensed it long before. What had he consumed that had poison in it? And which he had had recently?

Gokudera thought as he fought to detach himself from the strange pain radiating through him.

The cookie from five minutes ago!

Had Bianchi intentionally poisoned him? Not that he would put it past his sister, but he hadn't seen her dealing with any drugs… how was this possible?

He glared over at Bianchi, a slight grimace of pain on his face, to catch her grinning expectantly at him. Gokudera could read faces well enough to tell that, yes, Bianchi, his blood-related sister had poisoned him on purpose.

But this was not the time to get his revenge with her or even to think about some elaborate plan for revenge.

"Hayato, play the piano for us." His father ordered in that soft, but at the same time, stern voice of his. Gokudera knew that he couldn't refuse. His father and his family's reputation and honor would be tarnished, and these were important guests.

Honor and respect was everything in Gokudera's household.

Gokudera still retained most of the control in his body. Maybe he would be able to whip off a fast piece before he got seriously sick. He would need to see (and beg) Shamal, the family doctor to treat him, soon.

"Yes, father." Gokudera quietly replied, careful not to let his father or the guests know of his having been drugged.

Gokudera sprang into action. The drug was having more and more effect on him by the second and he wanted to leave as fast as possible.

But even though he picked an easy piece, one that was embedded into his hands' muscle memory, Gokudera still couldn't play it the way he used to.

The drug was numbing his entire body sickeningly fast with its strange spurts of pain.

Barely remaining conscious, he did the best he could and took his leave.

He struggled to a bathroom and threw up for fifteen minutes straight from containing his nausea for the past few minutes. Then he bided his time to fucking murder Bianchi and take some sort of suitable revenge. Maybe the new bomb technique that Shamal had finally begun to teach him would come into use.

When he finally found her, she was in a narrow hallway. Gokudera angrily realized that he couldn't blow up his bombs here indoors and put them away quickly to avoid having them confiscated by an adult authority. He was only seven, after all, albeit a seven year old prodigy.

Now forced to go closer for a direct hit (he preferred mid-range attacks, which explained why he liked Shamal's fighting style) he started storming over to her, growling with anger and spitting insults when he heard his father calling him from behind.

Quickly adjusting his expression so that it showed nothing but quiet interest and respect (His father did not tolerate sibling fights and punished them both severely every time he caught them fighting.), Gokudera turned to face his father.

"All the guests were so impressed with how you played today, Hayato. I've heard you play this particular piece of music several times, but never as abstract as this."

"I just…interpreted it differently today, father." Gokudera muttered.

He was thinking to himself, 'Interpret, yeah my ass! Like I would ever play as sappy as that without being on a serious high.'

His father smiled gently and spoke again. "Well, I've never seen the guests more impressed with your playing. Be sure to play like that the next time, all right?"

Feeling Bianchi's smile just scraping his back, he felt his face go paler than even usual. "Al…right father…" he finally said.

When his father left Gokudera and Bianchi standing alone in the hallway, Gokudera, now quietly shaking with resentment at his predicament, mentally screamed with frustration. He gritted his teeth, thinking about what he would face the next time guests came.

He knew he wouldn't/couldn't play as 'abstract' as he did today in his normal state. He couldn't bear to look at his sister and admit defeat.

It was obvious that he was going to have poisoned whatever forced on him again and that he would have to eat it to please his father and those stupid guests.

And so it went.

Every time guests came over, Gokudera had to play piano in that mysteriously-poisoned-interpretive way.

Every time, Gokudera had to force down Bianchi's cooking while Bianchi watched him tremble in pain with a sweet smile on her face and a glint in her eye.

Every time a recital was over and he was spent with being violently sick at some other new poison that Bianchi had developed, Bianchi would lock eyes with Gokudera and snicker as his face paled with fear and nausea at the memory of the poison.

Even though Gokudera was almost daily tormented by Bianchi in this way, he never dared tell or show his father anything, for that would disturb the little family peace that was almost never present.

After years of this treatment, Gokudera reached the state of paranoia that his stomach convulsed automatically whenever his eyes met Bianchi's. Then he would faint and hallucinate about people saying that he fainted due to musical interpretive visions.

It was a living hell for a home that the child-Gokudera grew up in.

* * *

One night, (seven years into the future: Gokudera is fourteen) after having been laid low once more by Bianchi's piercing glance, Gokudera managed to recover enough (and gather enough courage and desperation) to retaliate a little by groaning back.

"Why? Why are you doing this, you sadistic bitch! I'm not the same scared, helpless seven year old I was seven years ago! I'm your brother, you're my fucking sister, so why?"

Gokudera was in so much pain and despair than he only barely managed to choke these words out. But he kept on. "Why do you enjoy torturing me so much like this?..."

His voice was now only a whisper as the darkness beckoned to him once again. Even though he was bitter enough to insult and cuss-out his sister, his words were meaningless. He was going to pass-out soon, nothing mattered.

Bianchi's voice was so quiet that it was like a whisper of breath or a stream of tunnel-wind. "You're not my real brother…though you think you are… You're just an illegitimate bastard that won't get accepted in any Mafia family. It would be better if you died without having your lifelong dream crushed…."

As Bianchi left her half-brother motionless on the granite floor of the mansion's wine cellar, she wondered why she could never actually kill her brother. She flicked the wetness from her eyes away and vowed to spare her brother from total dejection next time.

The dim light from the single chandelier on the wine cellar surrounded Gokudera with the vaguely threatening shadows of the barrels all around. In this shady place, it was just light enough to see Gokudera still on the floor, spent but still just conscious.

If Gokudera hadn't already been on his hands and knees, he would have fallen to the ground in shock. As it was, only his arms buckled as his elbows gave out on hope and he lay sprawled on the floor, completely alone with only his thoughts. The black-out that came mere seconds later was welcomed, but that wasn't enough to make Gokudera forget.

A scarce month after this incident, fourteen year old Gokudera decided he would actually find about his birth. He had heard rumors since he was a child, but had never believed them. But now he wanted to know the truth. He did his research, snooped around, and decided the time when he would be ready.

When all the rest of the mansion was asleep, he snuck into his father's office. It was a formidable place, but Gokudera's determination knew no bounds at this point.

As he slowly walked past the bookshelf covering the west wall on his journey to the office desk, he scanned the book titles and looked at some of the framed pictures.

"The Mafia: Uncovered Secrets," "Famous Women Pianists," and "History of Caprica Cliff" were some of the books. Random, really. Most of the pictures were of him and Bianchi, so it was a good thing that only catching sight of Bianchi's real, unmasked eyes in person made him sick.

He felt a hard twinge of hatred at his heartstrings when he saw Bianchi's face, but he was able to contain himself enough not to turn violent. He only swore quietly, the fluent Italian cuss words slipping off his tongue into the office air.

There was one picture, more elaborately framed than the others, of a woman next to a grand matte-black piano. Her face was kind and her hair a silvery black. Gokudera's father had told him that she was a very good friend of his and Gokudera still remembered how depressed his father had been at the woman's car-crash death.

Gokudera had only met the woman a few times, but she had been very kind to him, had brought him thoughtful presents, had played piano with him a couple of times.

Gokudera stopped looking around in awe at everything unrelated and went to business. He knew that his father kept a notebook full of his innermost thoughts along with other personal documents in a vault under the desk. Gokudera already knew how to unlock the vault, and he quietly did so.

He looked at the documents that were spilled across the office floor, exhaled silently, and started looking for his past.

* * *

Five hours later, Gokudera was sitting by himself on a rock jutting out from Caprica Cliff.

His silver hair dropped across his face, his elbows on his knew, supporting his upper body weight. Wetness shone on Gokudera's cheeks and tears welled up from his eyes in an endless stream.

He knew.

Gokudera sniffed and wiped his eyes and nose every few seconds, but that didn't help the awful hurt inside of him.

* * *

(flashback) He had opened the vault and looked for the diary. When he finally found it and opened it, several pieces of paper from various places fell out.

One had a picture of a car-crash.

Looking closely, he could see long silver hair like the woman in the picture's and blood on the ground. Gokudera looked at the background closely. Wait…this was Caprica Cliff, one of the more precarious routes to get to the mansion. Gokudera guessed that this was the car-crash of the woman in the picture. So close to his home, but whatever, he wasn't here to research the woman's death, although it had been a pity.

He sighed. He was admittedly scared of finding out the truth so now he was trying to distract himself with info on people he didn't even know that well.

He ignored the other pieces of paper and flipped through his father's well-kept and precisely dated diary. His father had kept this diary every since he had become the head of his current Mafia family. Gokudera read about how his father had fallen in love for the first time, married, had Bianchi. Normal so far, maybe, just maybe Bianchi was just disturbed like he had always thought.

Still, he wanted to make absolutely sure. This was what he was for. The truth whether it damned him or saved him.

Gokudera read on, practically memorizing every word in his absolute concentration.

And then, everything changed drastically in the events in the diary. Gokudera's eyes widened and he felt his pupils dilate as he read what his father had written about the women in the picture(s). He felt slightly nauseous when he read that they were having a secret affair and that they had a child. He felt like he had just eaten a whole buffet of Bianchi's cooking when he read that the boy-child, would be an illegitimate child called Gokudera Hayato. The books and the pictures on the bookshelves weren't so random after all.

Gokudera wasn't so much shocked at this news than by the fact that the pianist woman had been his mother.

He was still shocked to the core all over again at having his fears confirmed, but the sorrow didn't come until later.

Right now, he was too shocked about who his true mother was.

The picture of the car-crash crumpled in his clenched hand. He read quicker now, read fast and sharp enough to understand everything. He stopped reading when he had taken in that his whole life was a fucking fake, and he wasn't wanted anywhere.

He cleaned everything up meticulously, and left. He was numb.

* * *

(present time) Gokudera looked out over Caprica Cliff and cried a bit harder in pure inner torture. He had passed this very point of the Cliff countless times, always just messing around and not paying attention to the sanctuary that this place really was.

He felt somehow horrible for crying for the mother whom he had never really known, shoulders shaking in jerks, breath shuddering. He stood up suddenly, tears still blurring his vision, and his mind was suddenly filled with nothing more than the desire to jump off the Cliff, to die where his mother had died, to join his soul with hers.

But it was there and gone in an instant.

He looked out forlornly for a moment, then closed his eyes. Even if it was just for a moment, he was part of his mother as his deep longing of wanting to be with her consumed him. With his eyes still closed and tears streaming down his face, he quietly whispered for her.

Gokudera had never really experienced real love, the kind of love than wrapped all around you, choked you while you breathed it in with jagged breaths. He had never lived love.

But he had experience glimpses of it with the piano-woman, his mother. He knew that committing suicide would be the utmost dishonor against her.

He sat back down, and then started mourning for himself, for his destroyed future as a bastard in the Mafia.

When he was empty, no emotions, no physical presence, just thoughts, he went back to the mansion. The servants looked at him with some surprise, wondering why he had been out so early, wanting to help him but knowing he would refuse.

Gokudera slipped up the stairs to his room, passing by Bianchi's and his father's bedroom. He could feel it, that overwhelming hatred that conquered all, but what was there to gain by meeting her? It would be more pointless to with his father. He thought about leaving a message to his father, and then didn't think anymore.

He went to his room and closed the door. It was quiet, and it looked the same as before, but it was surprising to no one that the room was now a stranger's room to Gokudera. He shook very slightly, but regained his composure. Feeling in front of him like a blind man, he stumbled his way to the nearest clear space of his room wall and leaned against it, his forehead pressing against the smooth wallpaper.

He stayed like this for a long while. Then, without a sound, he packed very lightly, and left the mansion forever.

* * *

From then on, he was a vagabond. Since he had known nothing but the Mafia, he couldn't and didn't want to get an occupation anywhere else. However, he struggled to get into a Mafia family.

Word had gone around that he was a bastard who had deserted his last family (although the latter part wasn't exactly true), and no one would take him in. The few who had given him even half a chance snatched it away at the slightest mistake that Gokudera made.

So it wasn't surprising that Gokudera finally decided that he would stop trying to be so perfect and take his anger out on someone, something, anything. He went on a rampage, looking for fights and tearing down the country wherever he went. He earned the title 'Smoking-bomb-hayato' with little effort and went searching to find himself.

**Hey, people/ readers! For all of you who took notice of my story, I say thank you. So, thank you very much and I hope you liked it.**

**Please, now that you've read the first chapter, will you review? **

**I don't know much about writing fanfiction and I want to improve, so please review! **

**Now, the second chapter!**


	2. Mafia Meeting : adult life

**Alright, I hope you liked the first chapter. Yamamoto will be showing up in this second chapter, for those of you who were disappointed by the first chappie!**

But now, that messed-up bomber boy was no more.

Gokudera had found a family who would accept him, who had a leader by the name of Tsuna (but who Gokudera treated with respect by calling him 'Tenth,' or 'Judaime').

He learned what friendship was with the other 'guardians' and what loyalty was.

When he met Bianchi again, he found that he had let go of his resentment for her and found himself throwing up at her sight just like old times. He found that Bianchi was kinder, and wondered why she didn't try killing him now as she had done before.

But he still wasn't forgetful or forgiving enough to erase the facts of life from his mind.

Gokudera had really mellowed out now.

His new life was great, even better than great!

He had a leader who would care for him, and it really didn't hurt that he was the leader of Vongola, the greatest of all Mafia families. Gokudera burned with determination not to dishonor the family and swore to protect its honor as the right-hand-man.

He joked around in his own rough way with the other guardians, some more annoying than others, but all in all, they could be tolerated.

Gokudera lived happily in this way, rising up and up and officially earning and receiving his position as right-hand-man of Vongola under the Vongola tenth boss.

He was revered for his unwavering loyalty, and the whole of Mafia knew that he would gladly die for the Vongola tenth. After people had figured out that he hadn't even been broken after being beaten and tortured by the infamous Gamma they stopped fucking around with him altogether. He was feared for his formidable fighting skills and planning tactics.

His life couldn't be better. Better yet, there was always a certain mysterious secretive aura around the position of the Vongola right-hand man, and Gokudera relished in this privacy of his own world.

So when Tsuna called him over to the office, one day, he gladly went, and made sure to get there in record time. It turned out that there was an annual Mafia family meeting and that all respectable Mafia bosses were ordered to come with their right-hands.

Gokudera, of course, wouldn't even think about not going in perfection. Even though he only had a few days to prepare, he worked even harder than before, planning everything, going over his manners and his fighting skills all over again, as well as getting all the paperwork done. He had to uplift the name of Vongola, after all.

It was the day of the Mafia Meeting, which took place on Mafia Island. All the arcobaleno, the ones who had arranged the meeting, were there.

Colonello was working double-time with Lal (who had joined Colonello in his job after he had begged her) trying to kick out the non-Mafia and to lead the proper Mafia to their proper place. Most of the time, nowadays, it was Lal who drilled and tested the subjects ruthlessly while Colonello lowered her intensity a little.

Life was very good for both of them, especially for Colonello. He was the one who had, along with the support and opinion of Reborn, decided to study the current Mafia families and test their capabilities.

Although Gokudera knew that he had pride, power, honor, everything he had ever wanted, he still felt scared at the thought of meeting with all those other families. Gokudera had flitted in and had been kicked out, or even altogether ignored by many, if not most of them. It would be a bit embarrassing for him at best, completely humiliated at worst.

He called the guardians. He had grown used to them. All of them were steady, able fighters who were fresh, in their prime. All of them had chosen to dedicate their lives to Vongola and the tenth, although some of them refused to admit it. (But it was only the cloud and mist guardians, Hibari and Mukuro, and they were supposed to be somewhat distant from the family, anyway.)

He addressed them through the monitors in the cars. He, of course, was in the middle car with the tenth. The sleek black cars streaked through the road over to Mafia Island. Gokudera waited until the last guardians (all the guardians were grouped) had turned on their monitors to be able to listen and respond to what Gokudera or the tenth would say.

Gokudera said, "As you know, we are going to Mafia Island because the Vongola is called to the Mafia Meeting called by the arcobaleno, the world's strongest hitmen. I obviously have made sure that you are all ready on the behalf of the tenth, so you guys had better not fuck up now because I'll personally blow the lot of you up if the name of Vongola is disgraced."

Even hot-tempered Hibari, who was now used to the way Gokudera spoke, only scoffed before halfway turning away from his monitor to look at Mukuro with a slight 'do-you-believe-this-guy' smirk on his face.

Mukuro, who was with Hibari in the front car, smirked with Hibari as his red and blue eyes glinted. (Chrome was simply quietly sitting in the back seat, but she had understood and she was determined to do her part without complaint.)

Mukuro and Hibari were in the front car (which was directly in front of Tsuna's and Gokudera's) so that they could effectively ward off and/or illuminate any annoyances along the way. Mukuro would use his illusions and Hibari would use his tonfas as always. The two were well-suited for the front-look out job, especially now that they had agreed that their skills were on par and that there was no point in fighting each other.

Yamamoto, who was in the car directly behind Gokudera's and Tsuna's laughed gently at Gokudera's mannerisms and smiled when Gokudera scowled at him. He thought that Gokudera was so cute when he scowled and snapped like that.

Yamamoto was in the car right behind Gokudera's so that he could ward off any attacks from behind that Lambo and Ryohei didn't. Gokudera trusted Yamamoto now. Because Gokudera had been through a lot with Yamamoto, the two shared a special relationship.

Lambo (who was had long ago shot himself with the permanent-effect ten-year-bazooka) yawned in a bored fashion as Ryohei grinned happily at the 'challenge'.

Those two had the broadest fighting capability so they were last. They would be able to distract any enemies that came from behind. Lambo could make a wall of lightning, and Ryohei could take care of the few stragglers.

Gokudera, done speaking, turned the monitor to face the Tenth, and took what little time he had left to scan the outside for any disturbance while paying attention at the same time. When he was satisfied that there were only a couple of clueless civilians gawking at the assembly of sleek black foreign cars streaming by, he turned back to the tenth.

"Tenth, you know that this is gonna be the most significant moment for the Vongola. I mean, all the other families know that Vongola is the most powerful, but we've stayed so much under-cover that I expect that most of the stupid families think that we're not actually as good as our name is…"

Gokudera realized that he was speaking a little bit too fast in his excitement and anxiety. He took a quick breath and paused to let the tenth take in his words a little more slowly. At a curt nod to continue, he went on, a little more slowly.

"And you and I both know that we're better than all of what _they_ think." Gokudera crinkled his nose a little in contempt, but he was actually a little frightened. He couldn't forget his rejected past, after all.

Careful not to cause the tenth worry, he wiped the glint of fear that had showed on his face for only an instant, but not fast enough. Gokudera saw Tsuna's frown with concern. Damn that Vongola hyper intuition, it could see through anything even remotely human.

But Gokudera was an excellent actor through years of experience in pretending to be someone else. He flashed a somehow confident smile.

"So you feel completely ready to come out into the open? You're still young after all, and Vongola is powerful enough to be excused from a meeting like this."

Tsuna wryly smiled to himself. He knew that Gokudera's world would end if he refused to go, and even though he didn't really want to go public like this, he was more than glad to do it for the Vongola honor, for his guardians, and especially for his right-hand-man.

"Gokudera, calm down. I told you already that I wanted to go. Besides, life has been boring these days without the usual attempts to assassinate me" Tsuna laughed.

Reborn, who was already at Mafia Island with all of the other arcobaleno, had slipped out the office room to escape from Lal's and Colonello's teasing and flirting with each other.

Now that the arcobaleno curse had been adjusted so that the arcobaleno were now all in their twenties, it seemed that all the arcobaleno were chasing the dreams that they had missed before.

He really didn't know why both of them jumped and shouted that they weren't going out whenever anyone ever mentioned that they might like each other. It just made it obvious that Lal and Colonello really liked each other but didn't want to admit it. When Skull had foolishly teased them, Lal had blushed and backhanded him to the ground where Colonello, after grinning and adjusting his army bandanna, had thrown him out of the room.

Not that the rest of the arcobaleno were any better. Well, Fon was still cool and meditated, so he was bearable. Skull was still his lackey, Verde was still the mad scientist, and Viper ("Mammon") still idolized money. And he was still the world's best hitman. Go figure.

Reborn, of course, still kept in touch with his two apprentices: Dino and Tsuna. After scolding Dino for something or other, he disconnected and went on Tsuna's frequency and overheard Gokudera's and Tsuna's conversation. He started scolding Tsuna.

"Stupid Tsuna, what use is that Vongola hyper intuition if you don't put it to use?"

"Huh? Reborn?" Tsuna said in surprise. Gokudera saw that the tenth was having a conversation and so didn't pay attention to what they were saying. The tenth had to have privacy, after all. He did his equivalent to turning his ears off so that he didn't hear.

"If you'd only listened, you'd have figured out what is wrong with your right-hand-man!"

"Huh? Him?" Tsuna was too surprised to speak in proper sentences.

"Yes, Gokudera, you idiot!" Reborn snapped. "He's been more anxious than usual."

"How'd, how'd you know?" Tsuna stuttered. Talking with Reborn always made him feel like the young kid he had been when he had first met Reborn.

"Look at his body language, hear how his breathing is faster? Don't you even take care of your own guardians?" Reborn was getting annoyed.

"But, but he's been like that ever since he heard of the Meeting! He's probably just nervous wanting to be perfect like always!" Tsuna laughed weakly.

"No, if you knew anything of his past, you'd know why." With this interesting comment, he cut off and let Tsuna think about it for himself.

"Reborn…. Reborn? Ugh…" Tsuna groaned silently. He wasn't concerned that Gokudera had overheard because he knew how Gokudera automatically zoned out whenever he had a phone call. Gokudera just assumed that if he was supposed to know, the tenth would tell him directly without him having to snoop around like he had to when he was a child.

"Uhm, Gokudera, are you okay?" Tsuna spoke with concern.

Gokudera looked up and turned to face the tenth. "Yeah tenth, why?" He tried to give Tsuna a convincing smile, but Tsuna could still see the worry in it.

"Well, you're getting nervous as we get closer to Mafia Island, not excited as you usually get. And I've never seen you as distracted as this before." He wasn't about to let Gokudera back out on telling him if there was anything bothering him.

"Well…" Gokudera turned away and brushed nonexistent dust from his immaculate suit. He had had to tell this painful story to Yamamoto a short while ago, why did he have to go through the awkwardness again? He sighed, but he spoke. "Well….well you know how I was once called 'Smoking-bomb Hayato,'?"

Tsuna nodded. He knew that that was Gokudera had once been called. Now, of course, no one dared to call Gokudera that (unless they were seriously masochistic). He wondered what the earlier nickname had to do with anything.

Gokduera continued after an embarrassed cough. "Well, during the time that I had that name, I was pretty wild," he said, stating the obvious. "At that time I was really depressed after running away, but since I didn't know anything but Mafia, I had to join a Family. Word went around that I was illegimate, you know, a bastard, to say it another way. So I wasn't accepted to any of the other families, and if I was, I was kicked out shortly."

Tsuna was very shocked at hearing this. Gokudera had always seemed to be the perfect Mafiaso in every way to him, was, is, and would always be.

"So I'm just nervous at meeting all of those families, the ones who rejected me, again."

Tsuna knew that telling Gokudera that he had nothing to fear and that he was the feared right-hand-man of Vongola wouldn't make Gokudera feel better. He nodded and tried to put as much emotion-understanding, acceptance, and a hint of pity- into it as he possibly could.

When Gokudera smiled and turned to look out the window, Tsuna knew that Gokudera appreciated Tsuna's quiet response. Gokudera didn't want anyone to coddle him, and although Tsuna wanted to give Gokudera a pep talk, he knew that Gokduera would probably listen very carefully to his words but not take any of it to heart.

They sat in this silence together in the car, the silence stressed but peaceful at the same time. And before either of them could get lost in thought, they were at Mafia Island. But here, unlike the quiet streets that they had passed by, all of Mafia Island seemed to be out, looking and trying to catch the glimpse of the powerful Vongola family.

"The Vongola Tenth and his guardians approach!" announced a set of very loud speakers.

When the cars stopped in front of the Main Mafia building where the Meet would take place, Gokudera quickly signaled the other guardians to get out in order. When he came out amidst loud squeals from the crowd, Gokudera had never looked more professional.

After Gokudera looked around and saw that there were no important Mafia family members or assassins, he led the others to the Mafia Meeting.

The Varia, of course, were there. Not even Squalo, the second-in-command knew exactly where Xanxus was, although it was confirmed that Xanxus had, indeed, come with them.

Squalo was keeping his voice down and not shouting with his loud "Voooiii!"s". Fran was also there with Bel. Bel was dangerously laughing (or "ushishishishi-ing," if you want to get all technical) at something that Fran was showing him in a private illusion. Squalo muttered, "Those two… always together," to himself and barked, "Why don't you just go realistically satisfy your blood lust?" Bel snickered, "Good idea~" and started to go off, but Fran pulled him back.

Bel flashed one of his fanged smiles that made the surrounding outside people shudder but which made the Vongola/Varia people snort. Bel had mellowed down after getting together with Fran. Even the other Varia members were less obnoxious on this day. (That didn't stop any of them from referring to Tsuna and his guardians as 'trash'.) However, the Guardians were used to this.

The rest of the guardians were dropped off in the lobby to deal with less important things and to attempt to get along with Varia. Lambo and Ryohei were excited for no particular reason, and Gokudera scoffed at them. Mukuro (with Chrome tagging along) and Hibari sneered at each other as if to say, "_This_ is _it?_" Yamamoto fought to catch Gokudera's glance over the crowd, and when their eyes met, Gokudera smiled a little to assure him that he was okay, and Yamamoto gave him a "You'll do great!" smile in return. But Yamamoto, knowing the facts of Gokudera's early life that the others didn't know, was secretly worried to death.

"All Mafia family bosses and their right-hands please proceed to the Meeting Room." came an announcement. Tsuna and Gokudera immediately looked at each other, and without a single word, walked to the Meeting Room in precise steps.

Yamamoto hoped that Gokudera would look at him for comfort or that he would even give a glance back at him as he was summoned, but Gokudera walked straight on ahead to have his worst dreams confirmed without a look back. Yamamoto was left with the other guardians to worry about Gokudera alone, since he was only one who knew what Gokudera really felt.

* * *

(flashback) On the day that Gokudera had figured out that they were summoned to a Mafia Meeting along with all of the other Mafia families, he went to his office and worked, trying to take out his fears and doubts by planning a perfect something or other. He called each of the guardians separately and gave them instructions. When he was speaking with Yamamoto, Yamamoto suddenly said, "Hey, you alright, Goku? You sound a bit upset about something."

Gokudera had snarled, "Don't call me that ridiculous nickname," before attempting to continue, but Yamamoto wouldn't let him and kept on asking about if he was okay or not. Gokudera was too stressed to cuss anyone out, and he was too distressed to just say that he was okay. So he settled with, "No, but if you want to know why, do it some other time," before giving Yamamoto his instructions and sharply disconnecting.

After Gokudera had called all the guardians, he felt sick inside. He went to the Vongola lounge, and almost thought of breaking his vow of not smoking before he felt nauseous all over. He tried to get up and go to the bathroom but hurled on the floor in the lounge instead. When he could stand again, he rushed to the bathroom to grab a whole rack of paper towels to clean up. While he was using the paper towels to clean up, Yamamoto came in.

"Goku! Are you alright?" Yamamoto shouted in shock. Gokudera swore in frustration at Yamamoto's arrival, but ignored him and went back to cleaning up.

"Goku, you're really sick! Go lay down and get some rest, I'll clean this up!" Yamamoto said, pushing Gokudera towards the couch.

"Ughh… No way…. There's so much work that I need to do for the tenth. I shouldn't even have come here in the first place! I need to go back to my office…" said Gokudera before he passed out while trying to stand by himself.

'Goku? Gokudera!" yelled Yamamoto. He caught Gokudera as he fell, and managed to get Gokudera on the couch before running to get Shamal, the Vongola doctor.

When Yamamoto burst in Shamal's office, a swarm of mosquitoes surrounded him, all of them ready to inject their incurable disease. He hadn't remembered to knock, again, and he knew that Shamal might order his mosquites to bite him even after he realized that it was a Vongola guardian and not an enemy invader- because it was a repeated offense. Besides, Shamal had never liked him much anyway, for some unknown reason.

"Stop! It's Yamamoto! Sorry I forgot to knock, but someone's really sick and needs help! Don't attack me!" Yamamoto shouted/begged in panic and desperation.

"Unless it's Chrome, forget about it," growled Shamal impatiently. Yamamoto knew that Shamal insisted on treating only girls, but Shamal, the world's best doctor and medical fighter was here at the Vongola base for a reason, and it wasn't to flirt with women.

"It's Gokudera. You know, Hayato? He's stressed, and he threw up! He tried to get up, but he collapsed. Can't you glance over him?" Yamamoto begged.

It was known in the Vongola base that Shamal would treat women even if they weren't sick because he was such a sick flirt/pervert. It was also known that Shamal did, indeed, treat men, but that was only if he was in a very good mood and/or the men were very womanly, and/or extremely near-death.

Since the only permanent woman residents at Vongola Headquarters was Chrome and Bianchi, most people asked one of them to go with them if they were hurt. However, Chrome was, a lot of the time, with Mukuro, who would often refuse to let her go for his own reasons. (Bianchi just refused to go within a ten meter radius of Shamal after suffering several, ahem, kissing assaults, and so she wasn't an option.)

The other person that people went to when Chrome wasn't available, was, interestingly enough, Gokudera. Shamal would grumble and insult Gokudera and whoever Gokudera had brought, but he would treat the patient even if he was in one of his bad moods.

People jokingly said that it was because Gokudera was so cute, and it wasn't that Yamamoto disagreed with that, (he thought Gokudera was the cutest person around) it was that Gokudera was good-looking in a completely manly way.

After hearing that Shamal had been Gokudera's family doctor, it made sense. Even though Gokudera had annoyed Shamal with following him around, Shamal had appreciated the boy's interest and had a soft spot for Gokudera.

Shamal's face changed a little when he heard that it was Gokudera. His face took on a look of slight shock before it changed to one of worry and anger.

He snapped, "The idiot boy was annoying enough when he was ten, but now, ten years later, the twenty-year-old version is even more idiotic! What's he gone and done now? Fuck my life. Bring him here!" and motioned Yamamoto outside his clinic.

Yamamoto carried Gokudera over to the clinic bridal-style, (That just showed how sick Gokudera really was because Gokudera would possibly take dying over being cuddled by another person like this) and even though Gokudera was about the same height as Yamamoto, (only slighter and wiry) his frame and body weight had deteriorated significantly.

Shamal expertly went through the procedures and unleashed his full medical knowledge on his 'ex-student-but-not-really' with the utmost care in handling him.

It was no time before Shamal had mixed up a very powerful drug (one that could take out at least a hundred normal people in seconds) that would simply sedate the active Storm Guardian (who was almost immune to all drugs and common poisons after living with Bianchi) before calling one of his mosquitoes over. He mixed and transformed some of his innumerable diseases to create one that would cure Gokudera, injected it into the mosquito, which then injected it directly into Gokudera's bloodstream near his heart.

"Even though I've sedated him, he might still jump about. The diseases that I mixed are a type that's never been introduced to the world before, so for the first minute or so he will react violently." Shamal said.

He still had a look of concern on his face, but now that he knew that Gokudera was on his way to healing, his face was taking on a look of annoyance. Shamal left Yamamoto and Gokudera alone in the sick room to go back to his office.

Yamamoto sat in the little visitor's chair next to the bed that Gokudera was lying on, and chewed his lip in worry. Gokudera's face was paler than usual and cold sweat was breaking out all over his body.

Yamamoto had been Gokudera's friend since five years ago, but now, for him the feelings were turning into something else. He discovered that he liked Gokudera.

He smiled less around Gokudera, but put as much love as he could into every smile. He knew that Gokudera thought that smiling too much was idiotic, and besides, he found himself wanting to look cooler when Gokudera was around.

As far as he knew, Gokudera hadn't really dated anyone, but Yamamoto knew that Gokudera was straight through and through. Yamamoto wasn't sure if he himself was gay, but he did know that Gokudera was most definitely a guy whom he liked in _that_ way.

Yamamoto was morosely thinking these thoughts when he saw Gokudera moving. Gokudera started groaning and thrashing about on the bed, twisting and turning, threatening to hurt himself all over again. He remembered what Shamal had told him. He had expected Gokudera to squirm a little, not thrash around like a hurricane! But then again, this _was_ the _Storm_ Guardian.

Yamamoto tried to hold Gokudera down on the bed with his hands on Gokudera's shoulders, but Gokudera was too strong and agile to be held down securely that way. In the end, Yamamoto found himself entirely on top of Gokudera, effectively strapping him down to the bed in this way with his full body weight.

When Gokudera gave off a final twist and slumped, unconscious but peacefully asleep on the bed, Yamamoto gingerly got off of him and lay down next to him on the bed. Yamamoto only looked at his deep crush with a longing look before sitting on the chair next to the bed again and waiting for Gokudera to wake up.

When Gokudera woke up from his sleep a few hours later, Yamamoto was still there. Gokudera had better control over his feelings and his body now, but he still had stress. Yamamoto coaxed him to tell him everything, which Gokudera did, very reluctantly and slowly, and even then in tiny broken bits and pieces. Then, with a thank-you to Shamal, he went straight back to work without even thanking Yamamoto properly.

* * *

And now Gokudera was at the place and meeting which he had dreaded and which he had reacted to so violently. Yamamoto felt sick with worry for his crush, but fought not to show it.

He knew that Gokudera could take care of himself… right?

Meanwhile, Gokudera was paling more and more by the minute. He could have been hallucinating, but was that the umpteenth person he thought he saw insulting him in whispers? Tsuna didn't seem to notice, though.

In fact, Tsuna had noticed. He wasn't the tenth Vongola boss for nothing… he had the hyper intuition, stronger than all of his predecessors He had also noticed that Gokudera's name was spoken a few times along with the nickname 'Smoking-bomb Hayato'. He decided that this occasion was the most awkward one for Gokudera since becoming Strom guardian and that he wouldn't stop Gokudera if he did something brash.

However, attacking anyone was the furthest thing on Gokudera's mind. He would have gladly attacked anyone for the tenth, but fighting with someone to protect his own honor (when he was already known for having been a wild card in his youth) seemed to be out of place here. Gokudera found himself fingering his bombs without any intention of doing anything with them.

It was just something he did when he was intensely nervous.

Tsuna sighed as he watched Gokudera. They were now seated at one of the three long tables that filled the Mafia Meeting room. The arcobaleno, in their twenties, at their strongest, fastest, in their prime forever, were at a table in front of the three tables. They were dangerously beautiful. Everyone couldn't help but tense in their awesome presence.

Reborn, who was the leader (the sky arcobaleno wasn't present at present), stood up first and beckoned Colonello to do likewise. However, Reborn must have gotten bored with the Meeting, because he jerked his head for Colonello to speak and then sat straight down.

Colonello looked surprised that Reborn had forced everything on him and stuttered for a second before regaining his composure.

"Eh? Uh… Hey, kora! As you know, you are here because the arcobaleno summoned you. This is Reborn, that's Lal, Fon, Viper, ("Mammon!" Viper/Mammon muttered) Skull, and Verde. We are the revised arcobaleno who have called this Mafia Meeting to check up on the Mafia. When your family name is called, stand and introduce yourselves."

The family names of Mafia were now being called and people were standing up to introduce themselves as the head and/or the right-hand or something or other.

Tsuna looked at Gokudera questionably. Gokudera understood his confusion and began to explain. "The family heads and right-hands are introducing themselves as the family is called. You know, the usual formalities like your name and stuff. Be prepared to wait quite a long time, though, cuz as the Vongola with a V-name, we are the last to be called and there are dozens upon dozens of families here."

Tsuna sighed and settled more comfortably in his seat while trying to pay attention, but Gokudera was happy that he wouldn't have to face the music so soon. Perhaps this time would give him some to gather up his wits.

Gokudera allowed himself to zone out just enough that he heard Colonello or Reborn's voices calling out Mafia family names in turn, but not the stupid introductions.

"Vongola." Reborn's voice had traces of all sorts of emotions in it. Partly seriousness, parly pride, annoyance, and even anxiety (for Gokudera).

Tsuna and Gokudera stood up like the Mafia pros that they were (but which Gokudera was starting to doubt.) Tsuna went through his introduction smoother than even Dino (who had gotten over his clumsiness and was now top-level in classiness) had done.

Gokudera didn't mess up and appeared to be as calm and cool as ever as he introduced himself, but inside he was burning up. Both he and Tsuna noticed how certain Mafia heads were staring at Gokudera in subtle dislike.

It was only a matter of time before word got on the underground that the Vongola right-hand was only 'Smoking-bomb Hayato.'

Gokudera felt sick. He had spent the first few years of his life in a farce, the couple of years following in a tragedy, and when he was just about to stop acting and be who he really was in the intermission, the bitter comedy had started all over again. He would have done something, but he suddenly felt that anything out of line that he did now would be a disgrace to Vongola. For the second time in his life, he really didn't know what to do.

Tsuna saw the pain that Gokudera was in, but failed to see what to do in order to comfort his right-hand and his best friend. He looked at Reborn for a little advice, but Reborn was giving him the 'figure-it-all-out-for-yourself' look.

Typical of Reborn to ditch you when you needed him.

Tsuna turned to his right-hand-man privately when the other Mafia heads were just talking amongst themselves and motioned for him to come outside for a second.

As soon as they were outside, Tsuna started to talk, but Gokudera, in a very un-right-hand-manly fashion, put his hand over Tsuna's mouth to silence him forcibly.

Tsuna's eyes widened. Gokudera had never before laid so much as a finger on him, and now he was forcibly restraining him? It was a shock, but Tsuna understood immediately when he saw the hurt in Gokudera's eyes as he met eyes with his Storm Guardian.

With his hand still over his boss' mouth, Gokudera said quietly, "Not here. If you wanna talk, I'll take us." When Tsuna nodded with some difficulty. Gokudera took his hand away, and, taking firm hold of Tsuna's wrist, led him to a completely isolated room.

"First off, I've been here before with my childhood family, that's why I know this place." Gokudera began as soon as the door shut. He cringed in embarrassment.

If he was still the naïve fifteen year old he had been when he had first met Tsuna, his boss, he would have knelt down and bowed to Tsuna and begged forgiveness for… something.

"Second, I can't do this right now." He stopped dead after saying the last sentence and inspected the floor for scratches, his eyes not meeting Tsuna's.

Whatever Tsuna had been expecting Gokudera to say, it wasn't this. He spurted out, "You're ditching me now? If you were gonna do this, you should have told me! Why'd you have to stress out all by yourself?" How could his right-hand man ditch him!

"Gokudera, if you're doing this because you think that you're a disgrace to Vongola or some other stupid shit like that, then you're wrong. You'll only dishonor me and Vongola if you just leave me like this. What will the other families think?" Tsuna took hold of Gokudera's shoulders and started shaking him. Maybe that would knock some sense into him.

Gokudera kept staring at the floor. Tsuna wished that this was all some sort of insane joke.

But Gokudera didn't say anything, and when Tsuna saw that the light had gone out of Gokudera and there was no arguing with him, he let go, and Gokudera just quietly distanced himself from Tsuna. Tsuna knew that he couldn't do anything, so he left to find Yamamoto.

"What? I have to get to him, Tsuna! Quick, tell me where he is!" Yamamoto cried out when he heard the news from Tsuna.

Tsuna's eyes widened in horror again, and said, "Calm down! Yes, he is depressed right now, and yes, I left him in that condition, but you remember what happened last time when you tried to get close! He just went out and wouldn't even talk to me, for several more days! You have to play it slow and let him do his thing. I didn't tell you this news to cause trouble. Don't go. It will achieve absolutely nothing at this point. Better to lie low and wait."

Yamamoto saw the logic in what Tsuna said, but that didn't stop him from putting his hand on his sword as if he could slice away all of the demons of Gokudera's past. The other guardians and the Varia started trooping in. Tsuna groaned.

"Voooii! What's that bomb-brat done now? Blown his toe off?" yelled Squalo.

"Shhh!~ Be quiet! Don't be so disruptive!" hissed Tsuna.

"Ushishishi~ I always knew he wasn't fit to be the Storm Guardian… that position should be mine, right?" Bel snickered from the background.

Yamamoto was looking quite murderous by this point, and Tsuna knew that he would be angry at hearing the Varia casually insult Gokudera.

"What's the murderous aura in here?" Hibari snapped, having sensed Yamamoto's aura, as he came in with Mukuro and his devilish smile. "I'll personally bite it to death."

Tsuna rolled his eyes. Hibari and Mukuro could jump to the weirdest conclusions. Maybe that was why they were together.

"What about the Mafia Meeting to the extreme?" shouted Ryohei.

Tsuna ignored the lot of them, and, taking Takeshi, led him to Gokudera.

When they were both outside the doorway, Yamamoto asked in whispers, "Why is it so quiet in there? Has Gokudera died or something?" Tsuna replied, "Well, I don't think that Gokudera would be making a lot of noise in his current state, but the room is also soundproof. It's a music room. I'll be in the foyer with the other guardians if you need me."

Yamamoto went in very quietly. To his surpise, Gokudera was slumped over a black piano, his long legs stretching out behind him. Gokudera's face was in Yamamoto's direction, but it was expressionless and blatantly ignoring his presence.

Just glancing over Gokudera's position, it was obvious that Gokudera was making himself vulnerable to attack, as though he was expecting someone to come and beat him or something.

Yamamoto realized that Gokudera would have felt better if Gamma had come in and tortured him for no reason, rather than seeing a friend come to comfort him. Yamamoto waited until he was closer to Gokudera and then spoke.

He knew better than to try to comfort him with words, so he spoke about more casual past events in his attempt to make Gokudera feel better through his actions.

"I remember when I first heard you playing the piano, Goku…" he spoke very quietly.

Gokudera looked up, his face blank of any emotion, and said, "I told you before, don't call me that," before he went straight back to his previous position, eyes seeing himself in a place of seemingly no return.

Yamamoto beat himself mentally for annoying Gokudera with that stupid nickname. Great start.

Yamamoto forced a laugh. He started speaking again: partly to keep this sacred moment between him and Gokudera, and partly for Gokudera himself. He knew that when Gokudera got better, Gokudera would forget all about him. He had to remember moments like this when Gokudera would be out of his reach.

"I remember I had been standing in the doorway for several minutes when your music concentration was broken… You got a look of total surprise on you, and then you pushed away from the piano and stormed straight past me without speaking a word…. Now that I think about it that was the first and only time I heard you play." he concluded sadly.

He glanced back at Gokudera, whose expression hadn't changed.

"Gok…Gokudera?"

No answer.

"Hayato."

An angry start from Gokudera and a look directed by his piercing eyes to Yamamoto's. A "Call-me-that-again-and-that-might-just-be-your-last," look. Yamamoto's face paled at that look. Yamamoto swallowed and could barely breathe until Gokudera finally averted his eyes away, his expression saying absolutely nothing anymore.

Yamamoto sighed. He had been defeated once again by Gokudera's will. He opened his mouth to maybe try again, but then when he tried, none of the meaningful speech which he had been planning to say came out.

"Gokudera… listen. I… "He whispered.

Gokudera rose and walked over to Yamamoto. Taking Takeshi by the wrist, he led him outside the room without speaking. Then he walked silently right back to the music room without a sound.

Yamamoto had tears in his eyes as Gokudera walked away from him. He, and everyone else, was used to the violent Gokudera who blew stuff up, threw, and slammed things, no one knew what to do when Gokudera was like this.

Least of all Yamamoto.

'As expected,' Tsuna thought as he caught a glimpse of Yamamoto coming back. 'Everyone but him would know that Gokudera wouldn't open up and return to normal that easily.' Then Tsuna opened his eyes in shock to see tears streaming down from Yamamoto's eyes. "Wha… Why, what happened?" he asked, expecting the very worst.

Yamamoto just shook his head over and over again at the questions directed at him. "It's nothing. I just failed at doing anything and he just dragged me out of the room and went straight back in. Tsuna, what if he hates me for this?" he looked at Tsuna. Tsuna was the only one whom he had confided in about his secret crush for Gokudera.

The Vongola guardians huddled around Yamamoto and comforted him without knowing why he was crying like the good friends they were. The Varia members stopped joking around and stood around awkwardly like the brutal assassins they were.

"I… I'm sorry, but I've been out for so long that the other families are sure to figure out that something is up. Gokudera and I left when the other families were exchanging formalities and stuff, but they're bound to be finishing about now. If I went in with him now, it would be fine and no one would be suspicious. I'm sorry Yamamoto, I know you don't want this, but I'm gonna have to force him anyway. It's all for good, you know that."

Yamamoto just nodded without really hearing anything, and so Tsuna gave a signal for the members of Varia to get Gokudera back with them. Tsuna might have well sent a housemaid to fetch Gokudera, though, because it was merely moments before the Varia came back, with Gokudera, with his head held up and wearing an emotionless expression.

The Varia, who had been willing to force a joke before, were all wearing shocked and rather scared faces.

It was plain that Gokudera was not with them, and that it was only a shell that stood amongst them, but Tsuna looked into Gokudera's eyes, and then turned (along with Gokudera) and walked into the conference room with Gokudera much the same way as they had done a few hours before. Yamamoto felt the tears coming all over again. Behind him, the Varia members were muttering amongst themselves in a murderously anxious way.

Meanwhile, Tsuna glanced at Gokudera, who was sitting next to him at the conference tables, every few seconds to make sure that he wasn't about to go on a sudden rampage. Gokudera held his head and his posture the exact same way as before, but his face still had the numb look behind his 'mask'.

By the end of the meeting, his body-language signified that he was excruciatingly tired from his mental stress (he was doing everything very fast because he wanted to get away as soon as possible), but his face wore the same expression as before.

After the meeting, Tsuna and his guardians 'mingled' with the other family members (even Hibari was present, albeit with a very murderous aura, so no one actually went near him), so as to form some friendship/alliances and get to know about one another.

As the Vongola, Tsuna and the rest of the guardians were the most popular people of the whole lot, and people from every which family were clamoring around them. Tsuna let Gokudera go on his own way to some quiet place alone- there was no point in keeping him in the torturous presence of the other families anymore.

By the way that a few of the family heads (who were all grouped together, unfortunately) were squinting at both him and Gokudera over their shoulders, it was clear that they were bitter. Bitter that they hadn't recognized Gokudera's potential when Tsuna had. Bitter that they lost/kicked out what would have been a very loyal family member. Bitter just because they were fucking failures.

Tsuna felt sad that Gokudera had had to live with this truth for all of his life. He was also angry that no one had helped him before. He was angry at himself for not knowing about this before and not knowing what to do to stop it.

Gokudera, however, still had that blank look (if he noticed the looks of pure hatred he was given as he walked by, he showed no sign that he saw them.) as he walked back through one of the many corridors of the Mafia Meeting building.

Yamamoto's sad (and still somewhat teary) eyes followed Gokudera's path until he was out of sight behind a corner, but didn't follow him. He hadn't lost hope in Gokudera yet, but he knew better to approach him now. He was biding his time and waiting until Gokudera would come to him.

Gokudera, meanwhile, was in some other remote room. This room was far, far away from the former piano room, as he really needed to be left alone. There were several hard, uncomfortable wooden chairs lined up at the back of the room, but an unfeeling Gokudera slumped down on one of them as if it was a plush Italian leather armchair.

His head was hanging down with his bangs covering the first half of his face and his elbows were on his knees. He had almost never felt so exhausted both mentally and physically in his life (of course besides _that time_ when he was little.). He would welcome abandonment (the very thing which he had fought to avoid at all costs in his past life) now. But it seemed that now, no aspect of the world went according to his wants.

The door banged open with a loud crash as it slammed against the wall. Gokudera didn't look up. He just didn't care if it was the Vongola Guardians or the Varia. If Tsuna came, he would probably look up and do as told and come back to Vongola Headquarters, but his heart wouldn't be in it and the work assigned to him would only be completed with perfection because it would have no trace of humanity to it.

If it was anyone else, Gokudera didn't know what he would do. But who would come to find him here anyways?

The people whom had opened the door were walking over to him. Gokudera knew, by the sound of footsteps, that it was quite a gathering. His inner Mafia sense told him that it was actually seven people walking over to him, and that there were also seven people who were standing still right inside the doorway. In Mafia, seven wasn't the lucky number. Seven was the death number.

He grudgingly looked up, now somewhat wary because these were strangers who were all looking at him intensely. The people walking towards him stopped. He recognized the people in the back row, the ones standing far from him, though. They were the Mafia family heads whom had taken him in and then kicked him back out. (The rest of the Mafia family heads had simply ignored his request or laughed at him.)

Gokudera knew what they came for, but didn't do anything to stop them. He stood up slowly, and after piercing the lot of them with an empty look, turned his face away from them. He knew that he could defeat/blow up the whole lot of them within milliseconds, (his inner Mafia sense could measure and compare his ability to others') but he did nothing. He had suddenly thought that dying in action would be an honorable death.

With a nod from one of the Mafia family heads, the seven people walking over to him started forward again, a couple of them rolling up their sleeves. Gokudera didn't move, and he vowed to only make the sounds which he couldn't help but making as he would be severely beaten.

Four men blocked his sides (Gokudera had his back straight against the wall), and the three men in front of him roughly grabbed him without saying a word. Although all of them were doing what had been told them to do, it was clear from the looks of slight confusion on their faces, that they had no idea why the Vongola right-hand was not attacking them. However, when they saw that Gokudera was doing nothing to stop them, they scoffed and passed it off.

Gokudera took a breath, and relaxed himself for facing excruciating pain.

Of course, this was all happening in a remote corridor, so no one could have heard the commotion, but Yamamoto had that seventh sense when it came to Gokudera. It was just that he didn't quite know exactly what. At first, Yamamoto passed it off as nothing.

But when nearly a half-hour had passed with the intense feeling only growing stronger, Yamamoto hurried through the corridors in search of Gokudera (after informing Tsuna) thinking that Gokudera might be willing to open up to him now. It turned out that this premonition was true, in sorts… it was just that Gokudera was and had been opening himself up to the torture subjected to him for the past almost hour.

Yamamoto ran around, looking for Gokudera in the maze of corridors, when he heard the sound of things breaking through a closed door. He thought, 'Oh good! Gokudera must just be letting his anger out on something! Ah, that's good… that's the Gokudera we all know! I'll just dodge whatever he'll throw at me and drag him back to where the others are! He'll be alright now.' He started walking faster to the room where the muted sounds were coming from with a big smile barely contained.

When he threw the door open and barged in, he almost had a heart attack at what he saw. There were freaking fourteen other people in here with Gokudera! Freaking fourteen other people who were either watching Gokudera being beat up, or actually beating Gokudera up.

All of those unwelcome fourteen stopped and looked at Yamamoto, who was now wearing a rather shell-shocked expression. They stared intensely at him, but since no one knew that he was the Vongola Rain Guardian whose skill matched (if not almost better than) Gokudera's, they simply saw Yamamoto as a random weak guy who had mistakenly stumbled on their sadistic pleasure session.

Yamamoto, however, was very far from what they thought he was as they went back to their 'work'. Yamamoto was burning with hatred and was fired with passion and panic. Gokudera had been catching his breath while the seven who were beating him had been distracted by Yamamoto for a second.

His silver hair was streaked with sweat and his face was painted with his own blood that he had coughed up. He was writhing on the floor in pain, creating crimson patterns on the tile floor with his blood. In fact, there was Gokudera's blood just about everywhere. There was Gokudera's blood on the floor, on the wooden chairs, on the walls, Yamamoto thought that he even saw Gokudera's blood on the ceiling.

How could a single person have so much blood?

If Gokudera's hadn't had the amazing strength and endurance that he had, he would have passed out at least thirty minutes ago like any normal human being would have done. If there was anything to be thankful of about Gokudera's present condition, it was that at least the totally uncaring expression that he had on was now replaced. Not that an expression twisted and scowling with severe pain was any better.

When he saw Yamamoto's shocked expression, he let out a ragged breath (one of the few that hadn't been knocked out of him) and hoarsely spoke. "No… Go, will you? I don't want you here. I deserve this, anyway…" was all that Gokudera managed to spit out before he was completely winded once again by a fierce kick from one of the seven right-hands of his ex-seven bosses.

That was the spark that sent Yamamoto off into his rage.

It was bad enough to see Gokudera beaten up like this, but seeing Gokudera being beaten up in person was far, far worse. From the marks on Gokudera's body, he had been viciously kicked and punched everywhere, repeatedly, and even his throat had clear bruised finger marks on them from strangling.

And to hear Gokudera saying that he deserved something like this when no one in the world could possibly deserve such treatment was the absolute worst.

Yamamoto had pulled out his Vongola box and all of his four swords in one instantaneous swift moment as he sped over to kill the people who had put Gokudera in such a condition, when he was stopped by a shattering bomb-blast. Gokudera was acting through sheer will and was stopping Yamamoto from saving him.

This seemed to make the remaining four corrupt right-hands (who hadn't been impacted and knocked unconscious/dead by Gokudera's bomb) eager to beat up Gokudera even more, as if they knew that their job wasn't done yet and that they had limited time. The rest of them surrounded Gokudera once again before Yamamoto had time to catch his breath and (Gokudera was doing absolutely nothing to protect himself) while two of them twisted and held Gokudera's hands and arms behind his back, the other two pummeled their victim, hard, in the stomach and face repeatedly, sending Gokudera slamming into the wall.

Yamamoto suppressed a scream. Gokudera was still conscious, but just barely, and it was clear that Gokudera was purposely holding off the blackness so as to put himself through more torture. Gokudera wasn't a masochistic person, but he was one who believed in absolute justice, and it seemed that Gokudera felt that he was facing justice. At the very least, the immense physical pain was keeping his mind off his emotional pain.

But Yamamoto wasn't going to keep watching the love of his life being almost killed in front of his very own eyes. Within a minute, he had killed all of the seven-right-hands and had incarcerated the seven Gokudera's ex-bosses to the wall with some of his extra daggers and a wall of Rain Flame which prevented them from moving even a centimeter.

He rushed to Gokudera, and, in a blunt way which he knew that Gokudera would appreciate, knocked Gokudera unconscious with the flat of his sword before rapidly treating his many and severe wounds in quick succession.

After he had done this, he looked at the seven bosses with a look of pure hatred. The bosses then understood why Yamamoto hadn't killed them straight off. Yamamoto had wanted them to suffer.

But he couldn't torture them like they had ordered Gokudera to be tortured. Since he had limited time, and since he wanted Gokudera to deal with them in his own way, he flared up his Rain flame and smashed them out the window over to the Vongola vehicles.

Then he picked Gokudera up like he had done several days previous, and made his way through a different more-civilized route back to the Vongola cars without being seen by anyone. After carefully depositing Gokudera in the back-seat, and stuffing the seven Mafia family bosses roughly into the trunk, he rushed back to Tsuna and the rest of the guardians to tell them the news after washing up a bit.

Tsuna went pale with worry when he heard the news about his best-friend and his right-hand, but did as Yamamoto asked him and didn't go rushing to see Gokudera. (Yamamoto conveniently didn't tell him what he had done to the seven bosses.) The rest of the Guardians and the Varia were a bit concerned, too, but they all supposed that Gokudera, being very strong and willful as he was, would be able to get over it very soon.

With permission from Tsuna, and after fabricating an excuse for why the Vongola right-hand wasn't present, (which had something to do with important documents and nothing to do with personal matters) Yamamoto left to take Gokudera and 'those seven scum' (as Squalo put it) back to Vongola Headquarters.

When Yamamoto left, Tsuna went to work.

He told Lambo and Chrome to just sneak and flirt around to get information. (They were excellent at this, being quite sociable.)

He told Mukuro to go to the room where Gokudera was beat up (and where Gokudera's blood was everywhere) and use his real illusions to make it seem normal.

Hibari was sent with Mukuro because 1)he looked like he was going to kill just about every other Mafia family present; 2)he would keep annoying people away from distracting Mukuro; 3)he was good with illusions (as in he found faults with them because he hated them so much) so he could point out any aspects that Mukuro might have missed.

Ryohei was to go around and announce loudly that the Vongola right-hand had to leave for Vongola official affairs and that Yamamoto had gone also.

The Varia was to just be Varia and be jerks making pointless death threats to distract all the people who weren't already distracted.

The whole drive over, Gokudera remained unconscious, and Yamamoto took his eyes off the road every few minutes to make sure that Gokudera was still peacefully out in blackness. Gokudera's face was calm and clear in his unconscious state, no blank or pained expressions appeared anywhere.

In this sacred silence, they made their way to the Vongola Headquarters where Yamamoto gave Gokudera to Shamal and then locked the seven Mafia family heads in a captivation/interrogation room.

Once again, Yamamoto found himself sitting beside a very sick Gokudera lying on a cot of Shamal's clinic. When Shamal had heard the full story of how Gokudera came to be in his current state with bruises and cuts and broken bones everywhere, he looked at Gokudera and muttered with a murderous voice, "That boy just can't get it, can he? Can't even fucking appreciate his own life!".

Shamal slammed his fist down on a counter, making Yamamoto shiver in fear at Shamal's fury. The lethal mosquitoes were buzzing around everywhere. After this outburst, Shamal went directly to work, whipping things about in his hurricane fury as if he could feel his precious flirting time slip away by the second.

When Gokudera was finally treated to another mysterious mixture of diseases, Yamamoto watched as Gokudera let out a deep breath of air and sink into sleep. Yamamoto was much relieved that this particular medication didn't make Gokudera thrash about in pain. He didn't know if he could stand to watch Gokudera in such excruciating pain anymore.

When Yamamoto was certain that Shamal was somewhere very far away outside of hearing range, he bent over Gokudera, and with his lips very close and brushing against Gokudera's ear, he whispered all his feelings to him.

"Gokudera… Why did you have to torture yourself like that? Yeah I know… You did it to get your mind off your emotional pain…. You did it to punish yourself because you knew that none of us would ever punish you as severly as you think you deserve… but I just don't understand, Goku… Why do you have and hold all that pain within you when you have me? Tell me everything. I'll absorb it all instead of you, and you can let it sit and be safe with me. You'll be happy with me, Goku, I'll make you happy."

Yamamoto stared at Gokudera's sleeping face, pausing as he tried to conjure up the proper words to express his feelings. He took a deep breath and started speaking again.

"I'll never mention your past or anything because I couldn't care. But I know you. You don't take formalities and little comforts. You take the harsh truth as it is, and if that ends up with you being fucked-up, you'll accept it all the same and won't make a sound about it. But I wish you would, Goku, I wish you would… not that I'm asking you to change. I would never do that. I love you for who you really are, not who you pretend to be, no matter how hard you try to destroy yourself... Be as rough as you want with me, I'll take it as a part of you. Just know that you have me…"

Yamamoto just talked and talked to the unhearing Gokudera and cried out all of his troubles until he actually started to cry again. He felt a sense of burning shame along with his sorrow for breaking down like this.

In his terrible and hectic confusion and frustration, he was seized with a sudden impulse to slap Gokudera in the face over and over again, but when he reached out a hand to violently vent, he found himself cradling Gokudera's head in his hands and pressing his lips to Gokudera's forehead.

He was just so stressed.

After a long time, Yamamoto fell asleep, his head leaning against Gokudera's shoulder. It was night when he woke up. Gokudera was still asleep but by the ragged sound of his breathing, was going to wake up soon. Yamamoto knew that Tsuna, the other Guardians, and Varia would be here by now.

He went to meet them, but after bowing a little as was the Asian custom to the others (and nodding politely to the Italian Varia), he met eyes with Tsuna and with a single look, transferred his thoughts to his boss. Tsuna nodded seriously, and while the others left them be, the two stayed in this silence for about fifteen minutes straight, Yamamoto saying only what was necessary and Tsuna only asking what he needed to know.

After this, Tsuna nodded again in full understanding and release. Tsuna had understood everything and nodded permission for Yamamoto to stay with Gokudera and also gave him a silent order to restrain Gokudera if things turned bad and a plea for his right-hand.

Yamamoto simply bowed and went back to the clinic.

When he got back, Yamamoto found that Gokudera was just getting up from his sleep. He quickly retreated outside the room. It wouldn't be a good idea for Gokudera to see him directly after he woke up. It was highly likely that Gokudera would go back into his unresponsive state if he was so much as touched the wrong way. He knew when Gokudera was fully awake and healing when he heard Gokudera letting out of couple of pained groans.

Gokudera started trying to sit up, and when he found that he was entirely too covered with bandages to move properly, started cussing out the earth, muttering under his breath. But no matter how incoherent the words might have been to a careless bystander, to Yamamoto, who paid attention to every detail of Gokudera, caught every word as if Gokudera had shouted them out loud. He felt entirely too uncomfortable to describe.

Yamamoto knew that he couldn't pretend not to be there. Gokudera would figure out that he was just hiding. He couldn't just stand here like an idiot anyway for forever. He came out, a sad and serious expression on his face.

Gokudera just stared at him with a grimace of pain still on his face. When he finally took a hand from clutching his wounded side to beckon Yamamoto to come forward, Yamamoto obediently moved closer to Gokudera until he was sitting in the visiting chair with his body leaning very close to him.

Gokudera withdrew an arm from amidst the bed covers and grabbed Yamamoto's collar roughly, shaking him a little.

Breathing hard, Gokudera hissed, "Bastard. You knew why I was letting them beat the fuck out of me. Why'd you do it? Huh?"

Yamamoto spoke quietly. "They would have killed you, and you would have just let them."

"What do you think is gonna look better on the news, huh? Vongola right-hand man killed by fourteen other Mafia family members, or Vongola right-hand commits suicide? Which do you think would destroy the Vongola honor?"

Gokudera's emerald green eyes looked deep into Yamamoto's black ones.

"I wouldn't have let anyone kill you like that, and I won't let you. So neither."

"There's no point in me living. But I'm so stupid as to… Actually, do you actually understand anything about me Takashi, or are you just pretending to know?"

Yamamoto felt a deep stab of doubt at these words, but when he spoke, his voice was unwavering. "Don't be so disillusioned. All of the people in this building, all the Vongola members, care deeply for you. Tsuna wouldn't be able to carry on half as effectively without you. So don't say that."

Gokudera didn't believe him. "There's always a replacement. There's a whole line of people out there who are just waiting for a stop to open up. Fuck, as much as I hate to admit it, you could take my place as right-hand man."

Yamamoto didn't take Gokudera's bait. He knew what Gokudera was doing too well to fall into that trap. "Don't be ridiculous. No one could ever replace you, so stop saying that. Here, you still need to rest."

"Actually, whatever stuff Shamal gave me is pretty fucking effective. I think I can feel my scars healing even." Gokudera drawled while struggling to stand up. Yamamoto felt the last remnant of the Gokudera he knew (the one who was violent and cussed to try and out-confuse his thoughts) slip away and the cold replacement (the one who had tried to allow himself to be beaten to death) come back.

"Don't do that. Rest." Yamamoto tried to gently persuade Gokudera.

However, Gokudera refused, and Yamamoto's attempts at persuading him with words was proving futile. At Gokudera's fifth attempt at ignoring Yamamoto's advice however, Yamamoto started losing his patience and started using force to push him back down. Yamamoto pushed Gokudera back on the bed when Gokudera stubbornly tried to get up.

With each stupid attempt that Gokudera made, Yamamoto lost a little more of his limited patience and used a little more shoving force. After what must have been at least the ninth time Gokudera tried getting up, Yamamoto firmly shoved him back in place, using more force than necessary and staring Gokudera down with a "don't-try-that-again-seriously" look.

Gokudera ignored him and after a few moments, moved to get up again.

Yamamoto had had enough. His patience snapping and becoming angry (he was very stressed and tired, after all), he slapped Gokudera hard across the face, sending Gokudera slamming back to his previous position.

He didn't think about doing it, his patience had just snapped. He was angry and confused at so many things right now.

He was angry and frustrated with the seven bosses and their cronies, he was angry at Gokudera for subjecting himself to such violence, he was hurt because their relationship wasn't working, and he was just so so confused. He didn't think, just acted.

There was a resounding crack as his right hand connected with Gokudera's left cheek, opening up what little of the cuts that had mended and ripping the edges of the more gaping ones. Flecks of blood flew from the wounds. Gokudera flinched violently at the impact and bit his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

He didn't make a sound though. He slumped against the headboard of the clinic bed, with his eyes tightly closed and his head turned the opposite direction from Yamamoto.

Yamamoto saw, that through Gokudera's grimace at his pain, Gokudera was smirking. Yamamoto then felt and angry and sickened at himself for falling for Gokudera's trap. Gokudera could always manipulate people when he wanted, how he wanted. He looked at the blood, Gokudera's blood, on his hand, and felt even more sick.

Yamamoto sunk back in his seat with his eyes closed in disgust at himself. He wasn't worried about Gokudera doing anything dangerous to himself anymore. He was worried about how Gokudera was going to get other people, his friends even, to do it to him instead.

After Gokudera had overcome the pain (in a relatively quick period of time), he opened his eyes and stared at Yamamoto with something like a normal scowl/smile on his face. When he spoke, his words rolled off and went around in the room quietly like magic.

"You should have let me be, Yamamoto... Physical pain is nothing compared to other things. " he said, before lying comfortably in the bed.

It was clear how Gokudera was planning his own torture.

Yamamoto looked at Gokudera full in the face for a long time, but looked away rapidly when Gokudera looked at him with a 'What-the-fuck-are-you-looking-at?' dangerously amused expression on his face. Yamamoto couldn't take it anymore. He just acted.

If his Goku was determined to face death no matter what, he would at least confess his feelings for him. If Gokudera died from shock at hearing what he had to say, that would be the sweetest pain that Yamamoto would ever feel before he would follow Gokudera's lead.

He grabbed Gokudera's hands with one of his own and used his other hand to turn Gokudera's face towards him. He had a sense of panic within him, begging himself to stop, to stop matters before his heart would be broken forever. However, he had to do this.

It was now or later, and if it was now, at least Gokudera wouldn't be the only one with a shattered heart anymore. He started speaking slowly, making sure that Gokudera understood everything. He was going to save his feelings of love for Gokudera until the very last.

"Gokudera, I've known you about the same exact time period that you've known Tsuna. Since we met, we've even done and been through more together than Tsuna and you ever did. But you are eternally devoted to Tsuna, always taking every bit of his advice and doing everything perfectly for him with a smile on your face."

Yamamoto paused for breath and to gather up his willpower. What he said next was painful to him and he spoke fast.

"With…with me, you just don't seem to care all that much. I've tried and tried to get close to you, and after all these years, I feel like I have achieved something, but it's not much. I mean, we were on good terms, maybe even enough to be friends before this Mafia Meeting, but now you, the one I knew, is somewhere else."

Yamamoto spoke the last sentence with enough authority to overpower even Tsuna. He took a breath to start speaking again and to confess, and to tell him that he would forgive everything and forget everything, and he started speaking fast again, spewing the words out.

"But that's okay, because I can wait for the real you to come back. The person that you really are means to much to me, and…" but Gokudera stopped him by cutting him off.

"If you really believe the latter part… any part of what you just said, you don't know anything about me. This is me. Maybe it is a part of me that is kept hidden, but it is me. And our relationship? Let me clarify. Tsuna is not my friend. He saved me and accepted me when nobody else would. I would have turned completely numb if he hadn't taken me in then. He's my savior, and I look on him more as a god than as a person. Besides my relatives, you are the closest _person_ I know. But don't let this get to your ego just yet."

Gokudera paused, observing the effect that his words had had on Yamamoto so far. Yamamoto was totally absorbed in what had just been said to him. He was very hurt and very happy at the same time, because he knew that every word that Gokudera had spoken was nothing but the bare truth.

Yamamoto nodded for Gokudera to continue. He would be like Gokudera and accept the truth for what it was.

Gokudera went on. He turned to look at Yamamoto directly, then looked fast away. "Because I know what you would have said if I hadn't stopped you." With that, he stopped dead. Gokudera's breathing was even and steady, as his voice had been.

Yamamoto felt very taken aback to hear this, but managed to calm down the tremors in his voice enough to ask, "What do you think that I would have said, then?" He was trying to pass it off and play it cool. The confession could be put off. It didn't look like Gokudera was going to die any time soon as he was so passionate and fired up.

Gokudera looked straight into Yamamoto's eyes and spoke, enunciating every word as clear as crystal.

"You were going to tell me that you love me and have been for the past several years."

Yamamoto broke the eye-contact. How could Gokudera have known? His eyes flitted back at Gokudera's, pleading for an answer to his question. But they soon flitted away in shock and embarrassment.

"It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. It was quite obvious. And to end your emotional torture, I suppose that I can tolerate you, but it's no more or less than that."

Gokudera stared at him quietly before returning back to his 'quiet' state. This was also the facts of their relationship.

Yamamoto started gasping through his wide smile. He reacted before he thought, and he reached out to have a kiss with Gokudera when Gokudera's upheld forearm stopped him once again. But Yamamoto wasn't discouraged or hurt in the slightest at being deterred. He knew that Gokudera still needed time to heal and that this moment now was just a little fluke, a break from the hell Gokudera was still in.

He could and would wait, even if it took years now that he had hope in his life. He should have known that Gokudera would never let himself be killed, or kill himself. Gokudera just needed physical pain to fill in the blanks of his emotional emptiness. Now Yamamoto would be allowed to fill that emptiness at least partially.

That was enough.

Gokudera looked at him slowly, not saying anything, and then slumped back down suddenly into a deep sleep. Yamamoto knew that Gokudera was spent with physical and mental exhaustion from staying conscious for this long and from having this intense conversation.

He sat and stayed by Gokudera's side all through the rest of the night, knowing that there was light in his life after all.

When it was quite some time after midnight, in the early morning light, Yamamoto had a need to report this to Tsuna. He had to report the happy beating of his heart at Gokudera's recovery to come and his emotional victory. When he got to Tsuna's office, the light was on. When he entered after knocking and being granted permission, he saw that Tsuna looked exhausted. Tsuna had stayed up all night worrying for Gokudera and him both and hadn't been able to sleep without information on any or either of them.

Tsuna smiled when Yamamoto came in. With a look, he asked all his questions of the night in one glance. Yamamoto told him everything as detailed but as quick as he could, and when Tsuna had read between the lines and figured things out for himself enough to smile in relief, Yamamoto left to go back to Gokudera.

A few seconds after he got back next to Gokudera's clinic bed, Shamal told him that he had just given Gokudera another medication and that as long as he rested, there was no need for Gokudera to stay in the clinic any more. In other words, Shamal was kicking them out.

Yamamoto carried Gokudera to Gokudera's office/connection condominium and laid him gently on the bed. Much of Gokudera's color was back, and even his wounds were clean and fast on healing. Yamamoto marveled once again at Gokudera's amazing strength, endurance, and physique.

When Gokudera woke up, he ignored Yamamoto's attempts to help him, and lithely jumped off the bed to go wash himself. Yamamoto wondered if the miraculous event of last night had any effect on Gokudera, but blanked his mind when Gokudera said "Come with," as he left to go see Tsuna in his office. He would just go with the flow.

Yamamoto rejoiced that Gokudera had asked him to come. (Although he was realistic enough to accept that it was just a nice way of telling him to get the fuck out of his place.)

When the two Guardians reached Tsuna office, Gokudera put out an arm to stop Yamamoto from entering with him and entered in his own, leaving Yamamoto behind him to wait for him. Yamamoto waited outside patiently, even though he could see and hear absolutely nothing of what was happening inside the room. He could wait for a few hours.

When Tsuna saw that it was Gokudera who had entered instead of Yamamoto like he had been expecting, he jumped up with a cry and started rushing to Gokudera. Gokudera spoke.

"It was stupid and selfish of me to do that to you Tsuna, and I wish I could make up for it. The next time, you may be certain that I won't cause another mess like this. And, to placate you, I vow that I won't hurt myself anymore on the honor of Vongola. To alleviate whatever doubts or regrets you may have had, I'm sincerely happy that you knew me well enough to force to go to the Mafia Meeting with you. I'm glad."

Gokudera was just like the teenage version of himself reporting to the Tenth many years ago.

It would have been impossible for Tsuna to ask him for a better vow or promise. Tsuna knew that whatever Gokudera said, he meant it wholly (if only for that moment), but that Gokudera never turned back on a vow, especially a vow on honor of something he almost worshipped.

Then Gokudera looked Tsuna deep in the eyes again, and after leading both him and Tsuna to a more comfortable seating, he spoke again. "Yamamoto tried to tell me, but I already knew and have known. I know that you knew, and that you would know what I should do."

Tsuna breathed slowly. Even though Gokudera hadn't mentioned anything specific, he knew what Gokudera was talking about. So Gokudera had known all along and just hadn't shown that he knew. He should have expected this from his right-hand man, who missed nothing and found out everything.

Gokudera was also the greatest natural actor in the history of history of the world. He may not be much in Hollywood, but he was definitely something in the real world.

Tsuna gathered his thoughts and spoke. "Yamamoto is really… let me just say that if, for some insane reason, well actually not that insane, but anyways…an army of assassins came to eliminate Vongola and that all the people here were in imminent and immediate danger, including me and you, but Yamamoto wasn't captured or anything. The first person whom he would think of saving would be you."

When Tsuna saw Gokudera's expression darken at hearing and inferring that the Vongola Tenth would be neglected because of him, he quickly reiterated. "Wheather he would actually save you first could be debatable though…. All the Vongola members are, first and foremost, loyal to the Vongola after all. And even though I'm the boss, you are the right-hand so there's more reasons to the scenario…"

"I should have thought that I did my job better than that. I'll make sure to change his loyalties, tenth to you." Gokudera gently smiled.

Gokudera understood the serious intenseness of Yamamoto's feelings for him, but to Gokudera, anything that didn't put the tenth first was inexcusable.

Tsuna stared Gokudera with a 'You-know-what-I'm-saying-so-don't-twist-my-words' stare that pierced into Gokudera.

Gokudera weakly smiled and said "Yes, I already figured that out, too. That Yamamoto is like an open book."

"Which you, unfortunately, are not," said Tsuna halfway disapprovingly.

"Ya, well, the right-hand man is supposed to have a low profile. It's in my Vongola right-hand man handbook," Gokudera joked. Tsuna couldn't' help but smile.

"I don't recall ever making those set of rules for you."

"Ah, it's because you're so busy taking care of us that you can't keep track of all the great things you do for us, tenth. It's to be understood." Gokudera smiled and clapped a hand on Tsuna's shoulder in a gesture of mock pity.

He was smiling for real for the first time since his _incident_. It was good to be back home, where he truly belonged.

Tsuna laughed again, but then turned serious.

"Seriously, Gokudera. I know that you don't have feelings like _that_ for Yamamoto, but can you humor him until he's able to stop thinking about you all the time? Just being with you will make him happy. He won't ask the impossible from you…hell, he won't ask anything because he'll be happy just to have you! Just be nice. Even if you act like you two are just friends, if you don't do anything too rough, he'll delude himself be happy."

Tsuna stared off into space sadly at Yamamoto's impossible situation and Gokudera's decisions.

Gokudera nodded seriously, and said, "Of course. It's my duty as the right-hand man to make sure that all the Guardians are on top alert, and it wouldn't do for one of our best fighters to moon around like a love-sick fan-girl due to me. I'll tolerate him tenth. I promise that I'll be good to him. If he comes and talks to you about me in private, please don't tell him anything specific, or any of what I said, alright? And, whatever happens, please don't give that idiot the wrong idea."

After Gokudera had gotten a nod and a smile from Tsuna, he went outside the office.

Yamamoto lept up joyfully when Gokudera came back out. Tsuna saw the raw joy that was on Yamamoto's face at seeing Gokudera smiling again. Yamamoto eagerly asked, "Whatcha talk about, Goku?" to Gokudera while waiting excitedly for a response.

Yamamoto then said, "Tsuna! I see you look a lot better now! We're all okay now!"

Tsuna couldn't help but roll his eyes at the both of them.

Gokudera looked at Tsuna with a kind of helpless expression before laughing a little and saying, "Oh, nothing much. I'm hungry," to Yamamoto before heading to the Vongola snack bar. Tsuna watched Yamamoto scurry after Gokudera with a satisfied look on his face.

He was happy and content now that his Guardians were happy and content.

**How'd you like this second chapter? Yamamoto made quite an entrance here, huh? Well, thank you for reading, and if you would review, that would be even greater!**

**On to chapter three!**


	3. Yamamoto Takeshi complicates his life

**Uhm, I hope you liked the previous chapters (I keep on repeating what I already said) and hope you like this one as well...as always.**

Meanwhile, Gokudera was recovering from his past trauma as he finished a sandwich and a cup of coffee which he had permitted Yamamoto to get for him. Yamamoto was practically studying Gokudera's face as Gokudera ate quietly and quickly.

Yamamoto thought that he couldn't smile any wider when Gokudera finally nodded after finishing his lunch and grudgingly said, "Not so inedible, I suppose," with something like a hint of a smile on his face.

When Gokudera got up to go brush his teeth in the Storm section's restroom, Yamamoto followed him, although he was technically out of his bounds in the Storm section as the Rain guardian. While Gokudera was carelessly brushing his teeth to perfect cleanness, Yamamoto couldn't take it anymore.

Gokudera's silver/black silky hair was hanging over his face, his green eyes were halfway closed, and he looked so cute. Yamamoto had been leaning against a sink, watching Gokudera for some time when Gokudera noticed that he had a very captivated Rain Guardian staring at him like there was no tomorrow.

Gokudera started to say, "What the hell are you looking at?" but then remembered his promise to Tsuna that he would play nice. He ended up saying, "What the…uhm….what is so interesting?" to Yamamoto, feeling slightly miffed.

"Oh, nothing!" Yamamoto sang out. On impulse, he then hugged Gokudera into a hug from behind, wrapping his toned arms around Gokudera's abs and loving the feel of his skin on Gokudera's. He wanted to hold Gokudera forever like this.

"Hey! Whatcha think you're doing?" Gokudera said in surprise, as he detached Yamamoto's hands from his body and scooted a meter away. He started tensing up, like he was expecting Yamamoto to violate his personal space again and was preparing to defend himself.

He was gonna have to get Tsuna to revise the rules a little so that at a little of his usual rudeness and rough humor towards Yamamoto would be permitted. He finished washing up as quickly as possible and scurried out of there. But he didn't leave fast enough to get Yamamoto off his tracks.

Yamamoto followed him all the way into the office, the Storm Guardian Office. It was here that Gokudera planned events and other things for the Vongola family and thought of brilliant solutions to even the worst situations. It was here that Gokudera released himself and became who he truly was, opening himself up to the silent, unresponsive space of his private office.

It was here that Yamamoto had wanted to be in, with Gokudera, for so long. And now, (for Yamamoto at least) it was like a beautiful dream, an unforgettable vision, the long-awaited nirvana, pure heaven.

Gokudera didn't feel any of what Yamamoto felt.

He only felt a sense of relief and happiness at being allowed to do what made him happy. It was good to return to this place. This was his home. When he happened to glance back and saw Yamamoto's dazed but intensely happy look, the kind of look that Gokudera thought that people would have when they 'died happy', Gokudera laughed quietly to himself.

Yamamoto really was in love with him. It was a pity that for Gokudera, it was simply a deep friendship. But when he saw how happy Yamamoto was, he couldn't bear to destroy the other man's hopes and dreams. He would go along with it.

He was, after all, deeply in debt to Yamamoto for listening to his troubles and keeping that confidential information safe and released from Gokudera's inner torture chamber of his mind.

He would do what he could to repay that debt in full, in whatever way possible. There might just be room in his heart for just a little bit of Yamamoto after all, when all his bitterness and hatred was pushed away.

Yamamoto knew, somewhere deep within himself, that Gokudera would never love him quite like he loved Gokudera. But he was totally okay with that. Before this incident, before Gokudera had come to another deep life realization and before Gokudera had reached new limits and strengths, he wouldn't have been able to have this connection with Gokudera.

Only a short while ago, Gokudera would have roughly pushed his every attempt away and/or scoffed at him in derision. Now, at least Gokudera was letting himself be loved by him. Now, at least Gokudera was accepting him.

Yamamoto realized that in the end, that was all that he had wanted and/or expected. He was so excruciatingly happy now.

Shamal continued to send Gokudera medications. Within a few more days it seemed, Gokudera was almost completely healed. Gokudera even put special mediations on his wounds and scars so that they would fade away. The Vongola right-hand couldn't go around looking like a ruffian after all.

When Yamamoto saw that the bruises were fading away fast, he felt a sense of deep happiness, but also one of deep sadness and anger. How dare anyone do such a thing to his Gokudera! Then he thought back to the seven Mafia family bosses who were responsible.

He had routinely checked up on them to prepare them for when Gokudera would come for them. Yamamoto had allowed them basic human rights such as clothes, adequate shelter, and decent food. He had informed Tsuna about them (he couldn't keep them a secret and he needed Tsuna's help and advice.).

When Tsuna had heard the whole entire story of the deal with the seven Mafia family bosses, he was livid, but calmed down to a state similar to his calm dying will state and in this dangerous and serious aura, went down to meet the seven bosses.

Even the dangerous and disturbing people of the Vongola, such as most of the Varia and the guardians Hibari and Mukuro quickly went out of Tsuna's way.

Nothing and nobody could stop Tsuna when he was serious.

Tsuna went in the room. Several hours later, he came back out with a considerably satisfied but still serious expression on his face. The seven bosses had a look of severe fear on their faces at what they heard would happen to them. The Vongola Headquarters didn't have torture chambers (because Tsuna wouldn't allow it) but that didn't mean that they, the Vongola, didn't have their own mystic ways.

(Gokudera had joked about their absence of a torture chamber, but Gokudera really was the one who had made the decision to never have a torture chamber. Gokudera had always valued fair fights, and his mindset was made stronger after his 'session' with Gamma.)

Tsuna merely spoke to them, in a quiet serious voice about his right-hand man and how it would be Gokudera and no one else who would decide what would be their fate. That alone was enough to make the seven bosses almost die from trauma. They knew that Gokudera, if no one else, would not go easy on them.

Yamamoto definitely wouldn't.

But they all would have preferred Yamamoto over Gokudera, because no one could/would know just what kind of immense pain Gokudera was capable of inflicting upon others. At least Yamamoto could be counted on to wield his sword. But Gokudera?

Of course, no one had told Gokudera about any of this, not even Tsuna. (And Tsuna trusted Gokudera with anything and everything) Tsuna had decided to spare Gokudera for a little longer so that Gokudera could heal fully and have a quiet period to completely cool down from his shock. Yamamoto couldn't agree more. He loved having Gokudera all to himself these days.

Even though Gokudera insisted on working on the Vongola documents and foreign affairs and all of the things a right-hand man did, Yamamoto still had the best time with Gokudera while watching Gokudera crinkle his forehead in thought and then furiously scribbling down whatever his inspiration had been.

Yamamoto sometimes couldn't overpower the urge to hug Gokudera and feel them pressing against each other, giving and taking warmth, but he never did anything else, and if/when he tried, Gokudera always stopped him with a look.

At least Gokudera wasn't looking at him in a disgusted way, or a furious way, or a 'You-will-now-be-blown-up-by-my-bombs" way. (Gokudera had really learned self-control) Whenever Yamamoto suddenly hugged him, Gokudera just accepted it, sometimes patting Yamamoto awkwardly on the back, sometimes just standing there with a quiet/annoyed face.

Yamamoto took every expression with a smile on his face so happy that it put the sun to shame. It was just so, so good to have Gokudera back. It was better, better than better to have Gokudera with him. He wondered though, if his small moments with Gokudera now would be enough to keep him going later in the future when Gokudera was sure to leave him as they both knew somewhere deep inside beyond their hopes and dreams.

Somewhere along the line, Bianchi found out that the people who had inflicted this outrage upon _her baby brother _were imprisoned in the base. Of course, she was completely livid and flew off the handle in her poison cooking (no pun intended) and had to be dragged away, screaming and kicking, from the seven bosses so that she wouldn't melt their faces before Gokudera had 'seen' to them. She was so angry that she tried to force her poison cooking down Yamamoto's throat because she had the misconception that somehow Yamamoto had caused all of this to happen. (She had never liked Yamamoto much either.)

Her ourburst of rage was that notified Gokudera about his seven ex-bosses in the Vongola interrogation rooms. (This was about three weeks from the Mafia Meeting incident. Gokudera had healed remarkably fast considering all things.) Gokudera narrowed his eyes and tightened the corners of his mouth in distaste, and was more than a little irritated that something like this had been kept a secret from him, but it was obvious that Gokudera wanted to settle something with the seven ex-bosses.

Considering all things, he was taking everything very well. Gokudera could really hold a vendetta, could really keep stress within him, so now he had a lot to say, a lot to settle all at once. He was efficient as a killing machine when it came to settling scores. But just what he was going to do was unknown to anyone.

So Gokudera was arranged to meet with the ex-bosses one by one in private sound-proof rooms. All of the meets took place in one day. Gokudera was deadly efficient when he wanted to be. When he was done with each specific 'meet,' whatever ex-boss had been in there wore a face of complete shock which turned into the unfeeling expression which Gokudera had worn before.

Gokudera came out of each 'meet' with a grim look, but then quickly brightened up. Something had been relieved within him. Soon Gokudera had met with all of the bosses, starting in the morning, and finally ending in the evening.

All of the bosses were in near-comas and were suffering from severe trauma. Gokudera seemed to be relieved of some great weight and was considerably lighter and brighter after the 'meets'. No one dared to ask or even wanted to know just what Gokudera had said to the ex-bosses.

(Gokudera hadn't physically touched the ex-bosses, he'd simply talked, but words could be powerful when they came from Gokudera.)

All that the rest of the Vongola members heard about the ex-bosses later on was that all of them had committed suicide (without any sort of notice, will, or letter left behind) within the week of being released from Vongola Headquarters.

Gokudera was seen wearing a mysteriously dangerous smirk, which then turned into a look of dead secrets, when he heard about the news of the suicides. No one dared to ask Gokudera what he thought. Some things were best left unknown.

Then, the days were better than ever before for both Gokudera and Yamamoto. It was clear that Gokudera would never again be in the 'depressed/quiet' state of before. The ghosts of his past had all been buried. He had his life back, and no one was capable of taking it away from him anymore. He had never ever in his life tried to commit suicide, but he had thought of it several times, but now, not even the thought would never ever enter his mind ever again.

Yamamoto was also happier. Gokudera was now completely healed, and life was just great!

A typical day ran like this:

(Gokudera got up and sleepily made his way to his Storm condominium kitchen.) 'Another day to prove myself to Vongola,' he thought as he jumped off the bed in the early hours of the morning. He started planning what to do for the day already even as he was stumbling out his room. He had learned to be more of a morning person after being in the 24-hour alert Mafia life of Vongola.

(He would start making coffee and breakfast when Yamamoto would call on him, still in his pajamas like Gokudera was.) The doorbell rang interminably. Unable to cope with the wretched dinging noise any longer, Gokudera wrenched the door open and scowled furiously at the figure in front of him.

Yamamoto had known from long since when that Gokudera was only a morning person for the Tenth a.k.a. Tsuna, so he paid no attention to Gokudera's idle threats of death and destruction (or what he assumed were death and destruction… Yamamoto had learned to zone out during this period because he knew that Gokudera, in his extreme annoyed state, didn't even mean on iota of what he was saying.).

(Yamamoto helped him with breakfast and coffee and they ate together at Gokudera's marble kitchen table.) "What the hell are you doing here?" snapped Gokudera, momentarily forgetting his promise to Tsuna. "I don't need or want idiots decreasing my IQ with their presence from the minute I wake up! Go do your own thing in your own place! I don't pretend to know or understand why you invade my space all the time…"

But Gokudera shut up somewhat and sulkily sat at his expensive imported marble table when Yamamoto started making breakfast. He did need to eat after all, so why not just take perfectly good food?

(Yamamoto would jabber about nothing, and Gokudera would say nothing but simply scowl as he wasn't a morning person.) "So, Goku, how'd you sleep? Same as usual? Haha, I'll just assume that you slept well then. From your expressions in the morning, anyone would think that you either stayed up all night or what you were tortured by some awful nightmare or something! I know better though. My Goku knows well enough to have his well-needed rest! I always tell you Gokudera, you work too hard, but you never change."

Gokudera put his head up sometimes to look at Yamamoto with a "This-just-confirms-that-the-idiot-in-front-of-me-is-insane" look before going back to eating. Yamamoto was used to all of this. He didn't quite understand why Gokudera acted as though it was a huge surprise to see him in the morning when this had been happening routinely for the past few weeks and some. The truth was, the Gokudera still couldn't quite believe that one person could be so attached to another so unconditionally and obsessively. He was rather unnerved at this sudden onslaught of affectionate attention. He didn't tell this to anyone, though.

(When Gokudera was done eating, he would politely show Yamamoto the way out (keeping his promise to Tsuna) and wash and dress immaculately.) "Are you done infiltrating my place now? Go report to whatever other spy base you work for besides Vongola, I'm busy. The way out is that way, as you know." Gokudera said as he put his plates up and snatched his plates from Yamamoto whether Yamamoto was finished eating or not.

Yamamoto only grinned and left. He did have to do work and he must dress to impress Gokudera with his business-like style after all. At the very least he was learning to eat in record time like his Gokudera. And at least Gokudera was learning how to joke with him, he hoped. It made Yamamoto happy just to be with Gokudera at any rate.

(When he went to Vongola conference room like the Vongola members always did every morning, Yamamoto would be waiting for him at the door, and Tsuna would smile at the both of them, making Gokudera smile widely at his revered Tenth and nodding curtly to all the rest of the Guardians.) Yamamoto, when he saw Gokudera coming precisely on time, would always yell "Goku! I thought you'd never come! Well actually…not exactly cuz I know you always keep your word and stuff and…"

Gokudera would always retaliate with a glare that silenced Yamamoto and a "Che. I'm the right-hand of course I keep my word and do my work well. I see that you haven't been slashed up by anyone then… Tenth! I'm bloody relieved that no attacks were made on you last night! But then again, if there had been, I would have been prepared of course."

Tsuna just rolled his eyes happily and said his usual, "Hey, Gokudera, and relax, I trust you and the other guardians… Hello Yamamoto, I see you survived another day with my temperamental right-hand."(snicker)

(Then Gokudera would shortly go to work before reviewing with Tsuna and giving instructions to the guardians.) "So, eh-hem…" Gokudera spoke quietly, gaining the instant attention of all the Vongola. "I already gave you an overview of your work yesterday night, but I'll just review it…" Gokudera would then proceed to hand each department a file and a set of documents that explained exactly what to do while giving all of them a mental kick to start memory and their brains.

After some confusion and frustration on both sides (but mostly on Gokudera's with the frustration aspect and the confusion on the other guardians') they all set to work. As much as Yamamoto wanted to watch Gokudera work and neglect his own work, he knew that that was an unforgivable offense to Gokudera, so he worked harder at his work, hoping to impress Gokudera.

Gokudera would calmly go about in perfection, and of course, finish his own work perfectly in record time. At this time, it would be lunch, during which time Yamamoto dragged a reluctant Gokudera to eat lunch privately with him.

(Yamamoto basically forced Gokudera to eat with him.) "Goku! It's lunch-time! Let's eat together!" Yamamoto always shouted at Gokudera from across the room. Gokudera would then always mutter, 'That bastard doesn't have a fucking sense of embarrassment or a whit of sense…' under his breath before saying to the Tenth, "I'll go deal with him, tenth, don't bother about us and just eat lunch peacefully with other less annoying Guardians."

Tsuna would always laugh at Gokudera and smile encouragingly at Yamamoto. Yamamoto would then wrap an arm around Gokudera's waist, making Gokudera struggle and snarl at him, and led him up to a private room. By this point, Gokudera would be quite peeved, and would refuse to speak a word during lunch. But sometimes, when Yamamoto was lucky, Gokudera was a bit more well-behaved. It all depended on luck and chance.

(Then Gokudera would wrestle out of Yamamoto's attempts to hold him back and go straight back to work.) "Dammit, I'm not your pet, Takeshi! I have work to do! Now let me go already, geez!" But Yamamoto could tell that Gokudera wasn't actually mad at him. So Yamamoto could grab hold of Gokudera's wrist and say eagerly, "How was the lunch, Goku? Did you like it?"

Gokudera would detach himself slowly from Yamamoto's grasp and say grudgingly, "It was alright. Now I really need to get to work," before disappearing off to his office. Yamamoto smiled brightly as he cleaned up and whistled all the way back to the Rain department office.

(If Yamamoto managed to finish his own work fast enough, he would go visit Gokudera, who was finishing the work of several days in advance as always.) "Gokudera? You busy? Or are you just doing advance work again?" Yamamoto peeped his head inside the door after knocking a few times tentatively. If it had been anyone but Tsuna and Yamamoto, Gokudera would have blown up anyone disturbing his work.

Gokudera started scowling fiercely before recognizing Yamamoto and saying, "Oh, it's you again. Yeah I'm busy. Advance work is very important. You never know what could happen. I could suddenly fall into a coma or something from dealing with people like you."

Yamamoto just laughed and said, "Hey, I wouldn't let that happen in a million years. C'mon, let's just chillax for a second." Gokudera would sigh and then look up alertly. "Talking about work in advance, have you done your regular work? Cuz if you haven't, be prepared to be blasted back to your own office." Yamamoto just laughed even more hysterically at Gokudera's cuteness and gasped out, "Of course! I did it all already a long time ago! You don't need to be doing this! Tsuna worries about you working too hard!"

Gokudera would stare at Yamamoto incomprehensibly for a second before standing up reluctantly and following Yamamoto outside with a "The _tenth_ should always be prepared…"

But they both knew that Yamamoto won this particular battle.

(If Yamamoto was lucky, he would manage to hug Gokudera, if he wasn't, he would be shown the door in short notice.) They were walking slowly through the corridors and outside the Vongola mansions. Yamamoto relished every moment together and felt ecstatic when he felt his hand brush Gokudera's. Gokudera would always blush and scowl ever so slightly out of embarrassment and anger and snatch his hand away deeper into his pockets.

Yamamoto would smile gleefully to himself when he saw how cute Gokudera looked in moments like this. But then, too soon, Gokudera would demand that he needed to go back to work, and Yamamoto knew better than to try to stop Gokudera in moments like this, so he let him go. He couldn't wait until he would be able to see Gokudera again. He forced himself to go back to his office and review his work to perfection like he knew that Gokudera would do and would be doing.

(Then it was dinner time, and Gokudera would say goodbye to everyone and retreat to his Storm condominium with Yamamoto eagerly following behind.) "Are you following me? Fuck me, I have a stalker on my track. Maybe the not-so-sneaky stalker would disappear if I blew him up…" Gokudera knew full well who was behind him, but couldn't help teasing/threatening Yamamoto.

Yamamoto always tried his best not to be noticed by Gokudera, but he always failed before he even got within a good ten meter perimeter no matter how careful he was and no matter how much surrounding noise there might be. Gokudera had the highest senses out of anyone. But even though Yamamoto was fairly sure that Gokudera was joking about attacking him, no one could be entirely sure with Gokudera and explosiong so Yamamoto would run to catch up with Gokudera and somehow narrowly slip into Gokudera's condominium. Yamamoto always congratulated himself for getting past that just much of Gokudera's defenses, but he had no idea that Gokudera just simply allowed Yamamoto to enter to save himself trouble later on.

(Gokudera would usually crack a smile at the way Yamamoto was just so engrossed with him and would eat dinner with Yamamoto in his kitchen relatively happily.) At dinner time, Gokudera was used to Yamamoto following him, and was already looking forward to the next day. This was when Gokudera was the most vulnerable to Yamamoto's advances, but Yamamoto didn't advance on him at this time. He felt that Gokudera needed to have his moment of peace and so he just quietly made dinner, asking Gokudera every so often if he was up for anything special or if he had any demands.

Gokudera would always shrug and say that he didn't know anything and that Yamamoto should just make whatever. So Yamamoto did… he always made sure that it was something that Gokudera would like and something that might just be a little romantic though. He researched potential dinner options even. And he always felt the sense of utmost happiness and satisfaction when he saw Gokudera's face light up in delight and surprise for just that once instant at first tasting the food before replacing it with his usual scowl at Yamamoto. But maybe that scowl wasn't quite as fierce as before, Yamamoto hoped.

(The first hundred times that Yamamoto tried to kiss Gokudera before he went back to his own Rain condominium, he was stopped by an unrelenting forearm and fierce glare.) When they had finished eating dinner, Yamamoto and Gokudera put the dishes away and washed the expensive kitchen utensils carefully and precisely. When the last was done, Gokudera usually made a motion to wave Yamamoto out of his house, but Yamamoto always just gently led Gokudera to the living room so they could just sit and maybe talk.

Gokudera grumbled a little, but he had mellowed out over dinner and he was most comfortable and peaceable at night, so he didn't say anything harsh much. The two just sat like this for maybe ten minutes of so, sometimes having conversation, sometimes just drinking tea. Gokudera knew when Yamamoto was going to leave because Yamamoto always sighed very deeply with finality before getting up and gathering his things.

Gokudera had enough manners and class to get up with Yamamoto and to escort him to the door. Since Yamamoto wasn't the type to force Gokudera (because he knew that that would have drastic results) he waited a little and then advanced forward to kiss Gokudera when he knew that Gokudera would be on his guard.

But when he even tried to come and lean to Gokudera within a foot, Gokudera's forearm was securely positioned on his chest to push him off, and Gokudera was pointedly turning his head the other way. Yamamoto simply counted himself lucky that Gokudera wasn't flying into a rage. He thanked whatever gods there were that Tsuna had made Gokudera promise to be nice.

Yamamoto felt a little less hyper and just a tad bit less happy at not getting the kiss, but he was patient and understanding, and so he always stopped without even trying to overpower Gokudera, and left quietly. There was always tomorrow.

(The next hundred times he was stopped by a sharp hand motion and a glare.) After the whole dinner and sit-down tea time together on the conch, Yamamoto sighed to leave and Gokudera politely followed him to the door to escort him out. Yamamoto never stopped trying to get that good-night kiss, but after a while, since Gokudera was getting used to this, he didn't physically separate them too much anymore as it was getting routine.

Gokudera would lean back away from Yamamoto and fix Yamamoto with a diagonal stare that forced Yamamoto to stop. Yamamoto only felt happy that Gokudera trusted him enough to not put up his forearm because he was comfortable enough around Yamamoto to trust that Yamamoto wouldn't force it. But if the turning of the head and the glare wasn't enough, Yamamoto noticed how Gokudera's body tensed up like tight wire during these times and how Gokudera's arms were protectively over his chest. Yamamoto was getting used to this pattern, but he never stopped trying.

(The next next hundred times were when Gokudera allowed Yamamoto to just barely graze his cheek before pointing out the door.) Yamamoto was just about to leave again and he simply just had to try that kiss like he always did. Gokudera turned his head diagonally as he always did, but just perhaps that stare wasn't quite as strong as before. Yamamoto just smiled and leaned forward as he always did. His lips had just connected with Gokudera's cheek ever so softly when Gokudera pulled back and fixed him with a 'don't-invade-my-space' stare.

Yamamoto was shocked himself, but he also wondered if Gokudera had even registered that he had just been kissed. Maybe Gokudera hadn't even noticed! But these doubts vanished and Yamamoto knew that Gokudera knew only too well exactly what had happened when Gokudera looked straight at him with a unreadable expression and seriously said, "You gon' go or what? I'm not exactly begging you to stay ya know."

Yamamoto was still surprised by what he himself had done, but it didn't seem like Gokudera was shocked. He probably had seen it coming and was probably already calculating the consequences of this single act. After another moment had passed, neither of them was embarrassed in any way because both of them knew that they both had been anticipating this moment. Yamamoto never lost patience with Gokudera.

"Uh, yeah, yeah I'll go. It was nice eating dinner and…uh… it was great being with you and….uh, about tomorrow…," Yamamoto spurted out in quick session before he was cut off sharply by Gokudera, who was now intensely annoyed at Yamamoto's awkwardness.

"Yeah, yeah, just go I don't gotta deal with formalities everywhere I go, do I? Even Vongola right-hands have to have quiet time." Gokudera said as he forcibly pushed Yamamoto out the door and over his threshold. Gokudera nodded once and sharply closed the door. Yamamoto, after he had stood, staring at the closed door for five minutes, walked down the hallways slowly to his own condominium in a daze.

When he was halfway there, he couldn't contain himself anymore. He jumped around and whooped in excitement. He was excruciatingly happy just to achieve this much and to get this far. He had to go to sleep right now so tomorrow could come sooner!

As the year went by, Yamamoto was allowed to open up part of a softer side of Gokudera. Gokudera had mellowed out more than ever, and wasn't as vicious anymore (or as in need of anger management), although his fighting skills had increased about hundredfold. It was an amazing change that brought honor and glory to Vongola every time, much to the satisfaction of a certain Storm Guardian and to the awe of a certain Rain Guardian admirerer.

At New Year's day, after the celebrations when Gokudera and Yamamoto were both in Gokudera's Storm condominium, Yamamoto held Gokudera's hand tenderly. (Gokudera was in a good mood and didn't pull back as he usually did.)

They sat side by side quietly on the couch, not saying anything and not doing anything for a long time. Both of them were thinking about the past year and what new successes and failures this year would bring. Yamamoto put an arm around Gokudera.

Gokudera was deep in thought and had zoned out against the world and didn't notice. Yamamoto could tell that Gokudera was in one of his quiet moods and he knew that if he played this situation right, he could get Gokudera to open up to him at least a little more. But it was completely hit-or-miss chance.

Yamamoto waited a little longer, and once again he just thought, 'Oh, fuck it' before he took a slow breath and said, "You thinking, Gokudera? So am I…." Gokudera looked up and sighed. He knew that he couldn't just ignore Yamamoto because it would make the silence awkward. Part of him angrily wondering why Yamamoto had to break the peace, he spoke.

"Well, you know, Vongola has been through a lot after Tsuna became official Tenth and we became the official Guardians and whatnot…" Yamamoto took Gokudera's face in his hands and turned Gokudera's head so that Gokudera was forced to stare into Yamamoto's eyes. But Gokudera didn't see Yamamoto in front of him, his eyes were glazed over as he remained in his thoughts.

Yamamoto nodded gently for Gokudera to continue. Gokudera turned his head away, and with his eyes averted, started speaking slowly and softly again. "And it seems that we were only inducted a little bit ago, but everyone is already in their early twenties or mid-twenties, and I feel that everything has just happened so fast, so damn fast… and I don't feel like I did enough."

Yamamoto stared in shock. Was Gokudera confiding in him? Much more than that, was this what Gokudera really felt? Yamamoto couldn't believe it. Gokudera, when they were out in public, always was the perfect epitome of perfect loyalty and every aspect of strength. Even while with the other Guardians in private, he was always confident. (He was never cocky, just confident and self-knowing). So was Gokudera having self-doubt right now?

Yamamoto, desperately hoping that Gokudera was only in a melodramatic mood, tried to change the subject. "What you talking about, Gokudera? You're the best, you know that and you say so yourself! Everyone says so! You know that Tsuna trust you more than anyone!" Gokudera simply glanced over at Yamamoto at the last comment, smiled a little in hearing what he already knew deep inside, but then quickly retreated back into his quiet state.

Yamamoto was feeling more and more desperate by the second. What if Gokudera was going to slip away from him emotionally forever? "Gokudera, all the Guardians know and agree that you are the best-suited to be the right-hand of Vongola! Even if some of the Guardians like Hibari and Mukuro like to tease you and stuff, they acknowledge you more than anyone. Even Varia respects you… they just act like bastards because they don't know any other way to behave…." There was a pause as Yamamoto searched for more to say.

Gokudera's even breathing was like storms passing by to Yamamoto. After thinking a little, Yamamoto's mind simply shut down and his heart spoke. "And… if it makes a difference, I don't want you to be so goddamn perfect because then you won't match me perfectly anymore…."

Yamamoto whispered the last sentence so quietly that he wondered if Gokudera heard at all. But Gokudera was the man who knew everything and missed nothing. He knew, and he looked at Yamamoto with another unreadable expression. Yamamoto thought that Gokudera's eyes were maybe a little stormier than usual. Yamamoto, when he was unable to bear the suspense any longer, pulled Gokudera in close and kissed Gokudera lightly on the cheek. He didn't want to violate tacit rules and break what little connection they had by trying to force Gokudera to really kiss him.

The kiss was there and gone. Gokudera then pulled back abruptly and then, after another good silent quarter hour had passed, asked Yamamoto to return to his own Rain condominium in a polite but very serious voice. Yamamoto knew better to try anything and he simply left. As laid on his own bed in the Rain condominium, he wondered just what had happened and thought about Gokudera.

Gokudera, meanwhile, was lying on his own bed, snuggling deeper and deeper into the covers, burrowing in and curled up on his side. His nose and eyes were tingling. But before anything could or would happen, Gokudera fell asleep.

When he arose the next day, Gokudera's mind was unexpectedly clear and he was ready for a whole new year, but Yamamoto felt something different. He had transformed overnight in a way to match Gokudera's mindset. They would be better off, together.

After this incident, Yamamoto kissed Gokudera a goodnight kiss on his cheek, tenderly, but quickly every night. Yamamoto tried sometimes (very rarely) to get in a real kiss, mouth to mouth with Gokudera, but Gokudera stopped him. Always. But life went on. Gokudera had developed feelings for Yamamoto (but not _that_ kind), and Yamamoto's feelings of love for Gokudera had only gotten stronger. They spent more and more time together.

Now almost another year had passed since Gokudera and Yamamoto were 'together' at the beginning. They still had never kissed like Yamamoto wanted to, because Gokudera didn't want to. However, the kisses that Yamamoto gave Gokudera on the cheek were almost always allowed. These kisses lasted only instants, but it was enough for Yamamoto.

Gokudera now felt something a little deeper than even the deepest friendships for Yamamoto, but it wasn't love. That had yet to come for him. Gokudera, in the meanwhile, filled in the empty gaps in his heart with Yamamoto. He let Yamamoto kiss him on the cheek sometimes when a feeling of loneliness and a lack of love overwhelmed him. He succumbed quietly to the way Yamamoto hugged him tight and thought about what this all meant.

For these years, Yamamoto was in absolute heaven. He was with Gokudera, and that was all he had ever wanted. His relationship with Gokudera may not have been physical like it was in the movies, but he loved Gokudera so much that it didn't matter. He didn't think that physical things mattered one whit if the emotional part wasn't real.

He didn't like Gokudera because Gokudera was physically ripped and hot and sexy and just beautifully stylish.

He liked Gokudera for the way he would throw himself into his work, pull through whatever troubles he had for others, and love and care for others even as he scowled at them.

Gokudera's emotional charm was overwhelming for Yamamoto.

Yamamoto thought that Gokudera might like him back a little bit, and just this thought made him ecstatic. He and Gokudera were only twenty-two, there was time to love to set in between the two of them, he thought.

**Alright, so this was the third chapter, I believe. Hope you liked this one.**

**As always, thank you for reading, and will you please indulge me for a minute by reviewing? That would be much appreciated and I do so want to improve.**

**Alrighty, the fourth chapter coming up! Warning- more sensitive readers might want to skip the last bit…some less than pleasant things will happen…**


	4. Capture and Torture

**Hello people! I hope you liked the previous chapters, and if you didn't, I hope you like this chapter!**

**Warning: more sensitive type of readers might want to skip the last bit…it's not pleasant.**

But life went on.

Gokudera carried on doing his Storm Guardian and Right hand man work efficiently as always, and Yamamoto continued to try to gain just that little bit more of Gokudera's affection.

Tsuna could now trust Gokudera and Yamamoto to work together peacefully without fearing that the Vongola base would be overturned by Gokudera's bombs of frustration or by Yamamoto's depression of heart-brokenness. So Gokudera and Yamamoto were also sent on missions together.

The missions weren't anything special.

Gokudera and Yamamoto were too powerful to be sent on petty missions, and so they were mostly sent to crucial ones including some high-level diplomacy. The two barely talked during these missions (although they sort of made up for it by talking double-time before and afterwards these missions) because Gokudera was determined that they present a totally serious and businesslike impression.

It worked too, like everything else Gokudera did.

The almost complete silence between the two of them, Gokudera and Yamamoto, except for the curt words exchanged for brief and to-the-point information or confirmation, stunned and awed almost all of the other Mafia families to submission. The few families that managed to overcome this were quickly pushed down by Gokudera's sudden ruthless directions and Yamamoto's complete backing after the silent treatment.

Tsuna had never had quite so much success in these diplomatic missions.

Since the two of them interacted so much now, it was inevitable that their relationship improve. Gokudera, at first, lost his patience quickly (although he quickly started over again to honor his vow to Tsuna) with Yamamoto, but as Yamamoto was completely absorbed in impressing Gokudera with his skills, he learned fast.

Together, it seemed that they were capable of achieving the impossible.

Gokudera was grudgingly impressed and grateful that Yamamoto was able to pick up on things fast and that Yamamoto would support him on anything. Yamamoto was stunned once more by how effective Gokudera was and his love for him just grew deeper, if not with a tinge of more respect and awe.

They learned to deal with each other and they learned to think in ways that would match the other. Everyone in Vongola said that they were just so perfect for each other although both of them denied it repeatedly. (Gokudera denied it just because he was Gokudera who was the pessimistic realist and then just because he did. Yamamoto denied it to please Gokudera and because he thought that their relationship was definitely far from perfect and the way he wanted it to be.)

But they both had accepted (rather grudgingly on the part of Gokudera) that they were indeed right for each other. (as so far as missions and work went for Gokudera).

One time, it was nearing Yamamoto's birthday. (Gokudera's birthday had passed already with the usual showering of gifts from Yamamoto and some thoughtful presents from the other Guardians.) Tsuna gave Yamamoto a lot of work all of a sudden, saying that he was sorry, but that at least if he did it now, he wouldn't have to work on his birthday.

He also asked Gokudera to do some extra work for the week, which Gokudera finished in one day out of loyalty to the tenth. When Tsuna was sure that Yamamoto was completely absorbed in his work, he called Gokudera to his office to ask and tell him something.

"Yeah, Juudaime? What's up? Is there anything else you want me to do?" Gokudera drawled as soon as he walked in after being 'summoned'.

He was rather bored after doing all the work, and he had been starting on some more, but without Yamamoto's usual checking up on him, he was feeling rather lonely. He berated himself for going soft, but thought that maybe that wasn't quite so bad.

At any rate, why had he been summoned?

When he saw that Tsuna was grinning a little nervously and averting his eyes, he quickly tried to made his juudaime comfortable.

"It's fine, Juudaime. No need to rush," Gokudera said, making himself comfortable on the visitor's chair. This seemed to steel Tsuna's nerve, and he beckoned with his hand for Gokudera to come seriously. He spoke carefully.

"As you may or may not know, Gokudera, Yamamoto's birthday is coming up." He stopped to check Gokudera's reaction.

"So? What about it tenth?" Gokudera said with a confused expression. "Does it conflict with a mission or something that I didn't know about?" Tsuna shook his head rapidly in panic

. Gokudera was just not going to get it until he practically explained every detail of this to him.

"I want you to do something special for him. Something nice for his birthday. He did so much to make you happy on your birthday, after all." Tsuna said.

Gokudera shrugged nonchalantly but his face was rather shocked.

"Nice? I've nice to him all the time, haven't I Tenth? I kept my vow, didn't I?"

Tsuna, worried that Gokudera would think that he brought dishonor to Vongola, quickly replied, "Oh! No, you didn't break your vow at all! I just mean something special!... erm…. (he cringed at saying this part) like a date?..."

"Wha~ What are you saying, Tenth? I thought that you understood that I don't have feelings for him!" Gokudera yelped out on impulse.

When he saw Tsuna cringing a little, he caught himself and lowered his voice before he kept on speaking.

"Seriously, Tsuna, if I do something like that, it will make Yamamoto completely get the wrong idea and ruin everything. You know that I don't take much from him even now, god knows what he'll try on me if he gets the wrong impression."

Tsuna was now totally getting the idea that Gokudera called him Tsuna instead of Tenth or Juudaime when he was desperate for an out of a situation. But this wasn't going to kill him like the other incident at the Mafia Meeting almost did. So Tsuna pressed him.

"Gokudera, out of all the admirers you have, Yamamoto is the most dedicated to you and he's done so much for you. Did you know that he works harder than ever just to impress you? He practically is killing himself trying to imitate you with working his ass off just hoping that you will appreciate him more. By the way, you really need to lay off the excessive work, but I digress. I know that you two have been getting along fine, but I can't help thinking that you have your heart somewhere else. If you do, say now and I'll stop pressuring you."

Gokudera lowered his eyes and sighed many times as he patiently listened to what Tsuna was saying to him. At the last two lines, he looked up in surprise and stared at Tsuna with a disbelieving expression.

"Juudaime, even if I did like someone outside, how the hell would I keep something like that a secret? Besides… you know how I grew up, Tsuna. I'm not capable of love anyways, so why bother trying? Even if I did like Yamamoto, I would still think that something like this is ridiculous."

It was now Tsuna's turn to sigh. He looked around to gather his thoughts, and then, reluctantly told Gokudera something.

"Gokudera, don't get mad or upset or anything, but Yamamoto has changed. He does his work perfectly because he adores you, but his relationships with the other Guardians have changed. He used to smile all the time to everything for no reason, but he doesn't do that anymore. You just don't notice because either you don't pay attention to him, or he's with you. Yamamoto's almost reserving his emotions to just expend them all on you in the brief moments that you two have. Any other time, he's exhausted and a little bit depressed that you're not there with him."

Tsuna paused, and sighed. This was the part that he had to be careful with. He started speaking again slowly, trying not to give his explosive right-hand the wrong impression.

"And he does appreciate my help in helping him with you and acting as an advisor and controller of sorts (Gokudera turned his head and condescendingly said, "Che.." at hearing the term 'controller.') but his relationship with me has changed. He's not awkward around me or anything, but he's definitely more reserved. Now, I know that you don't have feelings like _that_ for me, but your loyalty is so impossibly unbreakable that Yamamoto feels that he has to share you with me. Haven't you ever noticed how he tenses up just a little when I'm around? He stresses over having your attention, and when you completely ignore him all of a sudden when I'm around, I think he hates me for that just a little bit."

Gokudera had a resentful expression on his face and Tsuna, for all of his hyper intuition couldn't figure out why.

This was Gokudera after all.

Gokudera said nothing and just looked for a while, and then he spoke. "I know about that. I'm just not willing to go to these measures to bring things back to the way they were. I'm sorry, but some things I have to let be for myself."

Tsuna sighed again. He should have known that Gokudera would know.

He had forgotten that Gokudera knew everything and that if he didn't, he found out. He sighed deeper this time.

Gokudera pulled away and willingly looked at Tsuna. "Don't tell him about this conversation. I'll do it, but it's for a reason all my own. I'll just consider this a return favor for what he did for me on my birthday. Stay out of this, and don't pressure me, please. In the meantime, keep him busy and don't give anything away."

Gokudera then left without any formalities attached. Tsuna just had to accept that.

Yamamoto's birthday finally came and they were ready for it. Tsuna suggested/told/ordered them to have the day off, which a work-weary Yamamoto was only too happy to do. It just made things better that he had the day with Gokudera.

He was all smiles to everyone before he and Gokudera would go on a 'date' and he even pulled aside Tsuna privately to thank him. Yamamoto knew that Tsuna must have had something to do with this, and he had never been so happy or so grateful in all his life for Tsuna intervention.

Tsuna, being Tsuna just shrugged the thanks off with a happy smile and ushered both Yamamoto and Gokudera on their way.

They first went to a coffee shop, where Gokudera decided that he was going to break the rubric by just handing over his present and a brief happy birthday note without any ceremony whatsoever. Yamamoto was surprised at the sudden action Gokudera made, but he accepted with a wide smile and when he leaned forward to Gokudera, Gokudera let Yamamoto kiss him on the cheek without so much as a scowl or a complaint.

Gokudera even shyly grinned a little, looking impish for a second, before he went up to the counter to get coffee for both of them. Yamamoto was exhilarated. Gokudera was confused.

What had he just done, and what the hell did it mean? He couldn't believe that he had just grinned like that without even thinking. The stupid smiling idiocy of Yamamoto was definitely coming off on him. Ugh. He was going to get some alone time after this.

The rest of the afternoon was the same as ever. They ate lunch, Yamamoto chattering happily and taking in the moment as much as he could, Gokudera listening and trying but failing to concentrate on his food. Gokudera was still confused about what he thought and what he felt.

He really needed to have some alone time. But he couldn't because he had promised Tsuna that he would make Yamamoto's birthday a nice one, and the birthday wouldn't be over until they both went to their own condominiums at the Vongola base at night.

'Just a couple of hours before I can settle my mind out,' Gokudera thought.

After aimlessly rambling around and talking, they decided that they knew the main streets too well and that walking along the highway was boring. Somehow or other, they found themselves squeezing through tight alleyways and taking in all their new surroundings.

Yamamoto stopped and commented on some aspect of the various tiny alleyways every few minutes, with Gokudera impatiently leading the way and trying to figure out how to get back to the main road. It was night by this time, and even though they weren't quite lost or anything, it seemed that they soon would be if they continued on wandering much further. It was then that the occasion happened.

While Gokudera was distractedly staring at some other thing that Yamamoto exclaimed at, he felt someone coming. Instantly on his nerves, he quickly turned around and looked for any intruders who might be coming. He cursed himself for having left most of his weapons in the car. He still had his bombs, though.

Gokudera listened harder, his sharp senses zoning out Yamamoto's voice and straining for possible enemies. He realized that it was not just one, but a whole crowd, an army that was advancing towards them.

He took a quick step to Yamamoto and covered his hand over his mouth to silence him, hissing out, "Shut up now! Someone coming!" and glaring all around him.

Yamamoto, taken off guard, stuttered out, "What you talking about Goku? There's no one…"

But it was too late. A volley of darts came.

Most of them were directed at Gokudera (since the attackers had done their research on the Storm Guardian) but some shots hit Yamamoto as well. Gokudera and Yamamoto could both withstand pain well enough to keep on fighting, but just as Gokudera blew up half the alleyway with his counter attack and killed off at least half of the intruders with his Storm multi-purpose flames, and just as Yamamoto had begun to unleash his Rain flames, the sedative in the bullets took effect, and they both slumped to the ground, unconscious.

When they both awoke, at approximately the same time together, it was daybreak on the next day. Gokudera got up first, growling and trying to get free, but no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't break free from the chains that held him to the wall. Yamamoto was also chained on the other side. Gokudera shouted at him to get up.

"Oi! Idiot! Get up now!" He shouted suddenly after waiting two seconds. Yamamoto whined a little in unconsciousness but then got up and yelped as he took in his surroundings.

"What the? What's happened Gokudera?"

"If I knew, do you think we would still be in here? We've obviously been captured, that's for sure. I can't believe I was so stupid to let my guard down! Fuck this! We need to find a way out!" Gokudera snarled.

Yamamoto frowned in concern. "Why would anyone do this to us?" he whined. Gokudera rolled his eyes and snapped at him.

"The same reason why we're in the Mafia, dumbass. Whoever captured us probably wants information from us or a ransom for us about Vongola."

Yamamoto frowned deeper as he took in Gokudera's words. "You're right, as usual. I wonder if they know that you're…" but he was cut off by Gokudera.

"Shut up right now! Do you want to give away information? I don't know why I woke you up when all you do is make trouble for me! You never know what these people know or don't know." Gokudera snarled again.

Yamamoto would have defended himself, but he was cut off by a whirring noise as the door to their cell opened and as someone stepped in. Both Gokudera and Yamamoto stared and glared at the person (actually people) who came in.

"Who are you and what you doing with us?" snarled Gokudera.

The person smirked and said, "You don't need to know who I am, just as a member of a Mafia family who hates Vongola. My, the Vongola needs to shape up. If you two are the Rain and Storm Guardians as I know you two are, maybe the Vongola doesn't need such useless members anyways."

Yamamoto looked at Gokudera, who had an expression of pure hatred on his face. Along with it was a hint of shock and self-doubt. Yamamoto quickly spoke to Gokudera, trying to soothe him. "Don't listen to a word he says, Gokudera, it's all lies from start to finish, and he's only trying to get you on, you know that."

Gokudera glanced at Yamamoto, and the doubt on his face vanished and he nodded once before he breathed in a breath to speak again to their captivator. "Scratch who you are, then. What do you want with us?"

The captivator smirked again. "I know how much you two mean to Vongola, although I can't imagine why, and this is just part of my grand plan to destroy Vongola to start my family's up rise in the Mafia."

The captivator beckoned to some guards standing behind him and pointed at Gokudera. "That one first I think. He seems to be a bit mouthier than the other one. We'll see how long it will take us to break him, ne?" The captivator spoke the last sentence with a relish, looking directly at Yamamoto as if he knew what exactly Gokudera meant to Yamamoto.

Yamamoto screamed out, "What are you going to do to him!" just as the guards roughly dragged Gokudera out of the prison cell to the interrogation room.

Gokudera didn't make a sound, and he only struggled a little. He had to learn more about his surroundings and his captors before he could try anything.

Gokudera felt a little pained as he heard Yamamoto cry out for him as he was dragged out. However, he didn't show it on his face, and he wore only his fiercest scowl. He tried to take in as much information on the place in which he was being captivated by looking around, but the guards knocked the wind out of him with a heavy kick every few seconds to prevent Gokudera from learning the route of this place very quickly.

Gokudera felt himself drifting in and out of alert consciousness as he was dragged on for what seemed like an eternity. When he came to all the way after zoning out, he was strapped down to a chair and the earlier captivator was sitting across from him on the other side of a desk. The guards who had dragged Gokudera over to the interrogation room were still next to Gokudera. The captivator smiled.

"Let's get started shall we? Now… I know you are the Vongola Storm Guardian and the right-hand man and I know that you friend there is the Rain Guardian. Tell me, where is the Vongola secret headquarters, hmm? You come from there, don't you?" he purred, folding his hands in front of him.

"Like hell I'll tell you confidential information like that!" snarled Gokudera furiously. The captivator's smile turned dangerous. "I'll ask you just one more time before I start getting to business. Where is the Vongola secret headquarters?" he almost whispered.

Gokudera leaned away from the other man's hiss, and chose to completely ignore the question. The captivator leaned back in his seat and did a hand motion. The next moment, Gokudera was slapped so hard across the face by one of the guards that he almost choked on his own saliva.

Gokudera had been through far worse, though, so besides wincing a little and allowing himself a well-chosen cuss word, he didn't react any more to the slap even though his pale cheek now had a red hand-imprint on it. The captivator smiled again. He leaned in close to Gokudera, and hissed, "It'll only get worse for you if you don't tell us. This is nothing compared to what we could very well do. And if we don't get it out of you, we'll get it out of your friend. So why not save both of you considerable pain? We will find out sooner or later anyways even if you don't tell us. You know the question that I want an answer to. Answer it."

Here, the captivator's expression turned cold as ice. "Or something unpleasant will happen to you, I guarantee it."

Gokudera's breath hitched a little when the captivator mentioned Yamamoto, but he snorted all the same. "You can ask all you want, you can do anything you like, but even if I tell you, Vongola won't ever be destroyed. But what matter? I refuse to tell you anyway."

Gokudera shrugged in a nonchalant manner. He had been through worse. Hell, if he died, he fucking died was his motto with situations like this. The captivator's smile tightened and the captivator slowly closed his eyes, but when he opened them again, his eyes were decisive, and his smirk was sadistic. Gokudera steeled himself to experience pain in short notice.

'As long as I don't die when I don't want to,' he thought.

Gokudera had always wanted to control his own death. Besides, neither the Vongola or Yamamoto could do without him he told himself. And that was the truth.

A few hours later, the guards dragged a heavily beaten Gokudera back to the prison cell and chained him to the wall again. Gokudera was so exhausted that he just slumped on the chains as though he had been shot with the sedative bullet all over again.

He barely heard Yamamoto's anguished cries at his condition, or the guards bringing a medium sized rackety wooden frame bed of sorts and toiletries for the connected bathroom that was provided. There was a Mafia human rights code after all and if those weren't followed, then the Vindicare would be after them.

And the Vendicare were more than anyone, even Reborn, could take.

When the door of the prison cell whirred shut again and the clamps on his wrists were released, he slumped to the ground as if dead. Yamamoto rushed forward even though his own wrists and ankles were aching very badly (he barely noticed the pain in his concern and panic for Gokudera), and helped Gokudera to the bed as quickly and as painlessly as possible, although it was just about impossible to achieve.

He cried and watched over Gokudera all night long, berating himself to having put them in this situation for his idiocy. He cried harder as he held Gokudera's hand as he sat next to his love on the bed and as Gokudera seemed to show no sign that he was moving, that he was living at all.

However, this was Gokudera Hayato, the man with seemingly unlimited strength and stamina and who was almost impossible to break, so the next day, albeit a little late in the day, Gokudera got up groaning to find a concerned Yamamoto sitting next to him on the bed and frowning sadly at him.

"Damn bastards…," Gokudera muttered before looking up at Yamamoto unsurprisingly. Gokudera had learned that every time he was hurt, there would be Yamamoto waiting for him when he came to.

Yamamoto leaned in with a worried expression, and said, "What did they do to you, Gokudera? I didn't want to hurt you unnecessarily, so I just let you sleep and I didn't disturb you or whatever, but you look like you need a little medical help."

Gokudera snorted at Yamamoto's naivety. "Yeah, well, medical help isn't going to come for me anytime soon, so forget about it. This is nothing compared to that other time, I'll be fine." Yamamoto flinched at Gokudera's words.

Gokudera sighed a little in frustration as he remembered the past night, but then had a grim smile on his face as he spoke again.

"They didn't get anything out of me, though, no matter what they did."

He looked up. Gokudera Hayato, the mastermind and the manipulator was back.

"I don't know if they'll try it with you, but if they do, you better not tell them shit. If you do, you do realize that it means that I've gone through that for nothing?" Gokudera cocked his head and stared a Yamamoto with such an interesting and dangerous expression, that he looked as though possessed by the Joker.

Yamamoto gulped a little as the full extent of Gokudera's words hit him. "I won't! I promise, I won't tell…" Yamamoto stuttered out loudly before Gokudera cut him off again.

"But since they started with me, they'll likely try to finish the job. Besides, I'm more vulnerable physically, if not mentally since I've already gone through one round. This is how the system usually goes, anyways. The idea is that if we are both tortured equally, we will take comfort from one another and be harder to break through our comradely. However, if only one is tortured constantly, one of them is bound to break. And this is true."

Yamamoto stiffened at the last few sentences. He shook his head.

"Gokudera, I know that you can take it, you can take just about anything, and I know that nothing will break us. I'm sure that the Vongola members are searching for us even now. I just… I just wish that it had been me to be chosen here and not you…" Yamamoto finished sadly.

Gokudera stared. "This is what I was talking about. I know that I can take it, but you can't take watching me get hurt. They'll probably push me to the very limit, and then tell you something like if you tell them, then they will stop hurting me. Hell, they might even start torturing me in front of you, since that would be far more effective. And don't start talking about people coming to save us or whatever. Get that idea out of your mind. It's the first and most important thing to think while under capture."

Yamamoto paled. He knew that Gokudera was right, as always. Gokudera sighed at Yamamoto's expression for a moment, but then his expression turned cold again.

"But I fucking promise you, if you tell them anything, anything at all to try and save me, they probably won't stop anyways. And even if they do and we somehow miraculously get out of here, I will never so much as glance your way ever again. Remember that and don't make my efforts have been in vain. I don't have the reputation that I have for nothing."

The silence that followed after Gokudera spoke, the seriousness on Gokudera's part for the Vongola honor and the pure shock and fear in Yamamoto's part at the thought of losing Gokudera, was broken by a loud announcement.

"Wash in the facility connected to the cell! Food will be brought shortly!" crackled the announcement. Gokudera got up directly and walked by the confused Yamamoto to wash. Yamamoto followed like a pet dog, and helped Gokudera to wash his wounds a little although he was mostly slapped away by a wincing and scowling Gokudera.

Wincing every so often, Gokudera took a good, quick shower and dried himself off in much the same way that he had done at Vongola Headquarters. Yamamoto marveled even here that Gokudera was efficient and to the point everywhere. Gokudera then left Yamamoto to struggle through what was what and how to use the facilities at all.

However, both of them were clean and feeling a little refreshed by the time the food came. It tasted like a greasy nothing, but they ate it anyway, Gokudera just putting it down his throat, then drinking water to wash it down, and Yamamoto making a face and gulping water every other bite. They put the trays away into the corner and waited.

Soon, another announcement came. "The wall locks will be activated shortly! If you are not securely bound in the locks when the guards come in, there will be consequences!" and with a crackling noise, the announcement speakers shut off again. To Yamamoto's ever living surprise, Gokudera put himself in position to be locked to the wall with only a muttered cuss word to express his displeasure, and so Yamamoto did the same.

When they were locked in, Yamamoto spoke, having gotten over his shock. "How come you so willingly locked yourself back in, Gokudera?" he didn't finish his thoughts.

He wondered if Gokudera was already giving in, but he didn't think so, no, Gokudera would never be broken so easily… so what was the reason?

"Dumbass, if we aren't locked in, there will be consequences, right? Well, usually the consequences are that we lose a facility or our human rights, or something other very unpleasant. That's what it says in the Mafia code book that the Vindicare made. So why make it worse for ourselves? It's fucking hell to lose even the bathroom or the bed. In case you are still oblivious, I've been in situations like this before. There's no point in mindlessly rebelling. And if we do try to rebel, the Vindicare handbook supports the consequences that we get, because obviously we could have just been nice little boys." Gokudera snapped sarcastically as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Yamamoto nodded. He had thought about that, but this serious version of Gokudera was confusing him. He didn't think that he had ever known this version of Gokudera before, but learning more about Gokudera like this made him happy in a grim sense.

Anything goes.

He watched as Gokudera cussed some more at how his cuts and bruises were still hurting against the restraints and he smiled. Gokudera was a far far way from being broken, he knew.

Smiling sadly in encouragement, he softly said, "Whatever they do to you, Gokudera, keep your honor and the Vongola honor, as I know you will do. And if it helps, remember that I'm here to support you if things get too tough."

Gokudera stopped wincing and cussing and looked at Yamamoto with his usual scowl in place. But then the scowl went away, and was replaced with a appreciating but serious expression.

"Thank you. I will."

Gokudera looked away, and the two stayed in this silence before the guards came to take Gokudera away again. The two of them, made eye contact, as if to say goodbye, and then they were separated.

Yamamoto was released when Gokudera was dragged away, and he was exhausted from watching over Gokudera all night long, but he couldn't sleep. The creaky wooden bed didn't help matters either. He waited and sometimes he thought that he heard Gokudera screams of pain through the prison walls and wrung his hands in grief.

He couldn't have been happier to be ordered to place himself in the restraints when the announcement came, since that meant that Gokudera was being brought back from his torture. Yamamoto almost threw up when he saw Gokudera.

He was almost entirely covered in blood, blood which Yamamoto knew that was one-hundred percent Gokudera's. The guards placed Gokudera in the restraints, and then left. As soon as the restraints were released, Yamamoto hurried forward to catch Gokudera before he fell entirely to the ground.

Gokudera could just speak intelligibly and loud enough to tell Yamamoto to help him to the shower. Yamamoto helped Gokudera to stand as the hot shower water washed the blood from Gokudera. The hot shower water washed away the blood that was still flowing into a crimson saltiness on the pale tiles.

Yamamoto did his best to wrap Gokudera's most severe wounds with strips of shower curtain and bed sheets before gently putting Gokudera to bed. Gokudera was filled with pain from head to toe, but he muttered, "Yamamoto, come sleep…" before he dropped down into oblivion.

Yamamoto, now letting himself cry, laid down beside Gokudera and hugged his love all night long, even though his sleep.

What Yamamoto didn't know through his worry was that Gokudera took a medium of comfort from Yamamoto. Gokudera would never have admitted it if Yamamoto asked him, but when being tortured, when things were at the worst and when Gokudera felt like he might unleash the hatred that he tried so hard to contain all of these years, he thought of the Vongola honor.

When thinking about Vongola honor ceased working after a certain point because it wasn't quite enough when it was such a vague topic, he thought of the very solid Yamamoto, who he knew would be waiting for him back in the cell. The torture wasn't enough to wrench his mind from thoughts of Yamamoto, who was so distressingly devoted to him, and that pulled him through.

Gokudera was getting rather used to the torture sessions now. He knew that they almost always involved whipping/slapping/cutting him (although there were variations), and that he could expect himself to be subjected to this violence either every day or every other day. Gokudera didn't feel panic or despair when he was called again to be tortured.

Yamamoto, on the other hand, acted as though it was the end of the world. Gokudera, at this point, was just thankful that he wasn't being tortured in front of Yamamoto, because he knew that Yamamoto would give in to try to save him, and that would be the end of everything.

The end of Vongola, the end of the honor, the end of his dreams, the end of their friendship.

However, what Gokudera didn't know was about the mental reading capability of his captors. Gokudera was a natural actor in all aspects, but he couldn't control some things, and after numerous torture sessions going by with Gokudera not even speaking a word of information, the main captor started watching more closely.

He noticed that even though Gokudera would still scream and writhe in pain, Gokudera's eyes would be half-closed, and that through the half-closed eyelids, the emerald eyes were hazy and glazed. He knew that Gokudera was mentally somewhere else, then. So then, he searched for what might be the idea or thought that was keeping Gokudera so occupied. From that point on, he began paying more attention to what the secret security cameras were showing him of Gokudera's and Yamamoto's cell.

He realized that no matter how snappy Gokudera spoke to Yamamoto and wrongly treated him, Yamamoto would keep the concerned expression on his face, if the expression wasn't growing even more concerned.

And even though Gokudera was renowned as the best natural actor, several hours of studying the tapes of Gokudera's reactions revealed that Gokudera was deeply grateful to Yamamoto for trying to help him with his pain. Gokudera's face would soften just a little bit when Yamamoto wasn't looking.

After several more torture sessions, each of which would have single-handedly brought down any other person easily, did not force any answers from Gokudera, the main captor knew suddenly what he should do.

Gokudera had to start to view Yamamoto as an enemy betrayer if there was any progress to be made. At the very least, breaking the relationship was crucial.

A plan was formulated.

Both Gokudera and Yamamoto were surprised happily when Gokudera wasn't tortured for almost five whole days in a row, giving Gokudera almost enough time to recover at least halfway completely.

Although the two were bored quite easily, they wasted time by talking about what the other Vongola members would be doing now, bantering a little just like they used to do, and even playing a few games when they were desperate.

Most of the time, they were content just lying on the bed together, both turned in the opposite direction, but taking comfort that the other was there. They rested as much as they could, but resting, no matter how much they rested, wasn't enough to prepare them for what was to come.

One day, the main captor decided that today would be the day when everything would change for Yamamoto and Gokudera.

Gokudera and Yamamoto naturally woke up and they both washed, Gokudera first (because Yamamoto insisted that since Gokudera was in a far worse condition than him, he should at least have few privileges) and then Yamamoto.

When they were done and just when they were about to engage in their normal bantering session, the announcement came. "Place yourself in the restraints! There will be consequences if these orders are disobeyed!"

Yamamoto turned pale as the floor tiles and he unconsciously let out a whimper at the thought of his Gokudera being subjected to torture again, but Gokudera merely sighed and muttered, "You'd have thought that these bastards would pick up that we know that there are damn consequences for everything," before putting himself in place with some more selective chosen cuss words.

It was remarkable how cool and rather unconcerned he was. When they were both locked in, he looked up at Yamamoto and growled, "What are you making that face for, huh? It's not like it's you gonna be tortured."

Gokudera looked almost pissed that Yamamoto was looking as though he was going to break down any second.

Yamamoto swallowed several times without much effect and then choked out, "I guess I'm naïve still… (Gokudera muttered, "Did ya just figure that one out, dumbass?") I just thought that maybe this was over… It's stupid. Nevermind."

Yamamoto turned away, and Gokudera saw that Yamamoto was miserable as anything. Gokudera sighed, and thought that he would say something to make his cellmate feel better.

"Look here… I was like that too, at one point. I just learned all these things faster than you, that's all. And you know that I don't have very much patience to start with, so bear with me, ne? I swear one of these days… (sigh)"

Yamamoto nodded silently, and Gokudera knew that that was about as good an answer as he would ever get. He nodded too, before the door whirred open. Gokudera jerked his head up and fixed the intruder with his usual fierce glare. It was the usual guards and the main captor who had usually come.

Only this time, it wasn't the guards who came forward, but the main captor. The main captor smiled dangerously and came forward with a syringe. He quickly injected whatever chemical it was into Gokudera, watching as Gokudera's scowl melted away into an expression of absolutely nothing as the immensely powerful sedative started working. Then he pulled out a different syringe and repeated the process with a weaker sedative. He smiled to himself as Yamamoto slumped down almost instantaneously,

With a grin, he said to his guards, "You know what to do."

When Gokudera and Yamamoto woke, both at about the same time, they found themselves in entirely different positions than from where they had been before being knocked out. They were in the same room, that was for sure, but it seemed that, at first glance, the room had only been cleaned and rearranged.

Yamamoto was slow to get up, but Gokudera, the sharp watcher, figured out that something was wrong quickly. First off, the previously rackety wooden bed frame had been replaced with a bed-frame made entirely out of steel. Gokudera's wrists were locked on a chain secured to the bed. Second off, whereas the previous bed had only a few sheets to protect them from the splintering and breaking surface, this one actually had a mattress.

Gokudera knew that these changes weren't made for nothing. But what were they for? Yamamoto was just locked on the wall.

Gokudera guessed that today was the day when he would be tortured in front of Yamamoto and that the bed had been replaced so that the bed wouldn't collapse with his violent thrashing and writhing in pain. Fabulous.

When Yamamoto regained his senses to come to the same conclusion as Gokudera had quite a while ago, all he said was, "Oh hell no… oh _fuck_ no…" over and over again at regular intervals. Gokudera didn't say anything, but if he had been able to, he would have slapped Yamamoto hard in the face just to shut him up.

Gokudera looked up grimly when the door whirred open again. He didn't lunge forward or anything. He knew that he wouldn't be able to break loose from the thickness and the condition of the chain that held him, and he didn't want to lose whatever dignity he still maintained.

But instead of going towards Gokudera, like the Vongola Guardians had been expecting, the main captor headed over to Yamamoto. When the captor was just a step away from Yamamoto, he turned slightly to shoot Gokudera a look before plunging a syringe deep into Yamamoto. Was that look…amusement and anticipation?

Yamamoto flinched as the needle pierced his skin and went in deep, but whatever expletive that he had been about to say withered on his lips as the powerful drugs from the syringe took control of his system.

Gokudera was more than a little surprised to see Yamamoto being knocked unconscious again, and he asked the captors. "What have you done to him? Are you starting on him now?"

The captor smirked sadistically again and said vaguely, "You'll see soon enough," before leaving.

"The fuck?" Gokudera said, as soon as the door shut, now bewildered and pissed off because he was bewildered. He had never come across a situation like this before. "That idiot… I wonder if he's okay. Those drugs wouldn't have been anything for me, but that shit's some potent stuff for him. He's unused to it," Gokudera said, allowing just a hint of concern to show on his facial features and his voice.

"What shit did they put in his system, anyways? Damn, if I could get off this shitty bed I would be able to tell… whatevs…he's bound to get up sometime." Gokudera persuaded himself that there was nothing to worry about, although he was still very confused and even though he had a very bad foreboding.

After a few minutes with no sign of Yamamoto even stirring, Gokudera began to get annoyed. He thought about calling Yamamoto, but then decided against it. Huffing and doing his best to go to sleep, he was just about to nod off when he heard clinking from the wall.

Eyes flying open, he managed to halfway sit up, pulling his wrist chain to the limit to have a look at Yamamoto. Yamamoto eyes were halfway closed and his eyes looked dilated. Gokudera realized that he was high on something.

After a moment, Yamamoto did get up, but Gokudera stiffened in discomfort when he had a good look at the Rain Guardian. Yamamoto was not in his right mind, Gokudera could tell. Yamamoto had the blankest expression that he had ever seen on anyone else and there was no trace of emotion on his face.

Gokudera knew that something was very wrong then. He didn't say anything. He would observe and watch what he could and try to figure out what was going on. But he couldn't help the shiver that ran through his back. Something was very wrong. But just what it was that was so wrong he couldn't be sure just yet.

Then, Gokudera noticed something else that made him catch his breath, and scream out, "Hell no! No fucking way! What the fuck!"

Gokudera had never felt so much panic in all his life as a horny Yamamoto attacked him. Time seemed to pass very quickly all of a sudden as everything sped up in a time warp. All coherent thoughts were lost as he madly searched for a nonexistent way to free himself from the chains that held him to the bed.

Even through the confusion, Gokudera could have sworn that he heard the main captor snickering in the background.

Through a tiny speaker in the bed corner, the captor snickered and spoke. "You've been injected with an after-effects sedative, by dear stubborn one, and you'll have found, or you will, that your strength is virtually nonexistent. And as for your friend…. He's been injected with an extreme aphrodisiac as you are finding out. Neither will wear off for at least a couple hours. _You do know what that means, don't you_?" The connection broke up in a rush of cackling and static.

Gokudera felt himself being covered in cold sweat within milliseconds. He was still speechless when the speaker crackled off. When Gokudera had regained his senses somewhat, he found that Yamamoto had somehow torn half his clothes off as well as his own. Gokudera tried to fling himself into action, but every time he tried, the powerful after-effects of the sedatives caused him to slump back down.

That didn't stop him from trying to do everything he could to somehow get the determined Yamamoto get off of him.

Gokudera had been through a variety of different traumatic experiences, but this one was threatening his record. Gokudera was used to the smiling, slightly nervous Yamamoto around him, the one who was always nice, not this sadistic bastard who was going to do hell knows what to him.

Instead of stopping and dropping his eyes in embarrassment while biting his lip in something like trepidation like the normal Yamamoto would do, this psychopath proceeded to attack the lips of the now frantic Storm Guardian.

When Gokudera fought to turn his head away, Yamamoto relentlessly used his free hand to force Gokudera to face him. Gokudera's head was filled with unpleasant wet sounds as his mouth was invaded by Yamamoto's tongue. Gokudera felt as though he could be consumed with panic and self-pity. Yamamoto maintained his steel grip on Gokudera as he lowered his attentions.

Gokudera had heard that rape victims never remembered exactly what had happened because something in the brain shut out the memory and the thoughts because of the trauma and shock it could bring. Gokudera felt like that now and he totally understood why that would be. It was just too much to handle.

His mind had already begun to detach itself to get away from the terror. Gokudera had almost just lost himself when he felt the Rain Guardian's hand at his crotch. Within a few minutes, Yamamoto had somehow forced his fingers deep into Gokudera, causing the smaller and lither Storm Guardian to shudder with disgust and cringe at the strange pain. His mind shut down then.

Gokudera was completely numb as he was turned around and ground into the bed with Yamamoto's thrusts. And before long, he went unconscious.

**Well, you can't blame me if you are traumatized by that last bit. I did warn you, after all.**

**Actually, when I read over the last part myself, I get shocked every time I read it even though I'm the one who wrote the freaking thing! That says something.**

**At any rate, will you please review? Please be kind…. This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction!**


	5. Comfort and Healing

**Wow, pleasant stuff this all is, isn't it? I tell you, after I wrote this part and I read over it, I cringed at what I, myself, wrote. **

**I dunno, maybe I'm sensitive or naive or something. (Although probably not really)**

**At any rate, things will get better...sort of...here.**

When Gokudera woke up, Yamamoto was still on top of him.

Without looking back, he gathered what strength he had remaining and shoved Yamamoto off of him onto the floor. He refused to look at Yamamoto directly, but he could see that Yamamoto was still buck naked through his peripheral vision.

He took a sheet and threw it over Yamamoto behind his back and headed for the bathroom.

He wasn't depressed or even angry. He was still shocked beyond what words could express, but the resentment at his captors and growing something like hatred for Yamamoto (even though he knew that Yamamoto hadn't been in his right mind) overpowered everything.

Gokudera's almost entire upper body was covered with bite marks, nail marks, hickeys, and bruises. His arms and legs were especially bruised all over. His whole body throbbed with stinging pain, and he limped with every step although he tried not to.

Starting from his ass, he felt as though his entire body had been crushed then torn apart. Taking no notice of the pain, he took the scrub washcloth and scrubbed himself for a long time until his skin was almost bleeding and scraped off.

He didn't look at himself.

He felt as though his body didn't belong to him. Gokudera must have been in the shower for at least a few hours, just letting ice cold water pour down on him until he finally decided that hiding in the shower wouldn't change a thing except numb his body. After wrapping himself completely with a towel, he looked out through a crack and saw some clothes placed on the bed.

(It was written in the Vindice handbook that although torture was allowed, humanitarian rights had to be restored eventually.)

Yamamoto was also gone, but besides feeling something like pure relief, Gokudera didn't feel anything. He wasn't sure what he would do when he met Yamamoto again. After putting on the clothes fast and checking to see that the bed sheets were clean, (the earlier set had been covered with blood, sweat, and cum) he curled up on the bed.

He wondered how Tsuna would react if he heard about this and what Tsuna would want him to do with Yamamoto. He finally forced himself to decide that he wouldn't be too cruel since Yamamoto really hadn't meant to do any such thing to him, but he wouldn't try too hard to keep himself in check.

It would be asking too much.

He thought long and hard, and he was still thinking as he fell asleep. When he awoke, some food was there which he ate without any comment whatsoever. Yamamoto was also back.

Yamamoto looked like he was still unconscious from the way he was so completely immobile, and Gokudera was glad of that. However, Gokudera knew that since Yamamoto had been drugged quite some time before, he would be stirring again in a few.

He forced himself to keep from 1) going back into trauma/ coma, 2) completely losing his mind/temper, 3) murdering the person in front of him.

From the way that he felt, he could very well have done any of these things. He forced himself to go to sleep. But that didn't keep him from the nightmares that came for him.

He should have expected it, but when he woke, Yamamoto was leaning over him and was gently grasping his hand. Gokudera, when he saw Yamamoto in front of him, jerked his head away and yanked his hand from Yamamoto's grasp as though he had been pierced through.

He threw himself back so hard that he slammed against the wall with incredible force.

Yamamoto cringed as though Gokudera had slapped him. "Gokudera…" his voice was incredibly sad and confused.

Yamamoto was thinking, 'What the hell did they do to him while I was unconscious? My god, he must have felt so betrayed… But it wasn't my fault, he must know that…'

There was a moment of pained silence, filled just barely with Gokudera gasps as he felt himself feel a torrent of emotions all at once, none of them pleasant and all of them seemingly burning through his very soul and mind.

Yamamoto tried to put his hand comfortingly on Gokudera's shoulder as he had done several times before. Gokudera hissed furiously and yanked his whole body away in a single violent movement, leaping off the bed to escape to the opposite side. Yamamoto was left behind suddenly all alone, halfway staring at his hand and halfway staring at Gokudera in emotional desperation.

He had no idea whatsoever why Gokudera was acting like this. Had he revealed information about the Vongola or something? Yamamoto found himself unable to meet Gokudera's eyes with his own. Gokudera's eyes were burning with something too much like pure hate for him to gaze into them.

"Gokudera… Gokudera, did I tell them…. Something about Vongola?..." He spoke quietly, with his eyes still averted.

Gokudera didn't answer.

After waiting a few minutes, Yamamoto tried again, although it was excruciatingly hard to do.

"Gokudera…did I?..." Gokudera shook his head angrily, refusing to talk to him.

After hearing all manner of grunts and moans from Yamamoto as he was being raped, he never wanted to hear another sound from Yamamoto ever again. But of course, Yamamoto didn't know any of this.

Yamamoto numbly thought quietly before saying, in a shaking voice, "Then why?... are you?..." He couldn't bear to finish. He couldn't make himself ask Gokudera why Gokudera hated him all of a sudden so unconditionally.

Gokudera scowled in more than distaste and glared in the most scathing and distasteful way possible, but didn't say anything. When Yamamoto got up and started slowly coming towards him, Gokudera tensed up all over, unconsciously backed himself away flat against the wall, and biting his trembling lip hoarsely growled, "_Don't_ come _near_ me!"

All the fear and emotions from the previous night were rushing back at him.

Yamamoto had never felt quite so heartbroken in all his life. Sure, Gokudera had always pretty much thought that he was annoying and would scowl regularly when he was around, but that kind of playfulness was nothing like how Gokudera was acting now.

He stopped slowly. He felt like crying and he had never felt so weak before in all his life. Just when he thought that he and Gokudera were getting somewhere, it turned to be the exact opposite, if not worse.

Yamamoto gently lowered himself down the floor before his legs collapsed from sudden exhaustion and a tear marking a shiny trail down his face, roughly whispered, "Gokudera, please… what happened?..."

That made Gokudera lose it. How dare Yamamoto break down when his pain was nothing compared to his? After breathing heavily in anger and something like sadness, he yelled, "Just ask the damn people what happened, why don't you!" before storming away to the bathroom and slamming the door.

He couldn't bear to be with Yamamoto anymore, he was going to crack if he did. He had never felt such a torrent of completely negative emotions before.

Yamamoto cried quietly on the floor, keeling over and just letting loose, bawling quietly before he finally was able to calm down a little bit. He was incredibly hurt and confused by Gokudera's words and actions, and there might have been a hint of resentment at being treated so unfairly.

Through the thin and wide-necked shirt that Gokudera was now wearing, Gokudera had obviously gone through some other form of torture because there were cuts and welts and crimson scars on every patch of exposed skin.

After vainly waiting for Gokudera to come out, he managed to calm his spirit enough to decide to try to find some answers. He couldn't bear to meet with Gokudera at this moment anyway. But how was he supposed to communicate with the people? He had just slumped down on the bed in misery when he heard a tinny voice from a speaker on the bed.

"You see the video camera in the corner of the room?"

Yamamoto was a bit surprised at the voice, but nothing could shock him more than Gokudera. He hoarsely answered that he did. The voice spoke again.

"I can show you what happened to your dear friend if you like~ If you don't see if for yourself, your friend is probably not going to tell you and that would be the end of that, wouldn't it?"

Yamamoto could have sworn that this man learned the skills of manipulation from Gokudera. After steeling his mind, he spoke with a slightly firmer voice than before.

"I'll see it."

So now Yamamoto in an interrogation room with a big screen in front of him. The guards had left after shackling Yamamoto securely to a chair bolted to the floor and now it was just Yamamoto and the main captor in the room.

With something like a snicker form the sadistic main captor, the man turned on the screen. Yamamoto watched as he saw himself and Gokudera pumped with drugs and then as Gokudera was chained to the bed. He watched as the guards and the main captor in the screen came to him to inject him with the 'other' powerful mysterious drug.

Yamamoto, after he had seen this part, knew that the part that came after was crucial to pay attention to.

All his memory had ended after this point until the point when he had woken up hours later to find a battered Gokudera sleeping fitfully next to him.

He vowed that no matter what the captors did to Gokudera, he would pay attention even if it killed him because he just had to know just what it was that he had done to make Gokudera hate him so much.

But when he saw himself, looking as though possessed, walking towards Gokudera with a clearly obvious erection, he suddenly found it quite impossible to keep watching.

He closed his eyes tight as soon as he heard Gokudera trying to plead with him. He dared to open his eyes after a minute or so, because there were no loud noises, but then instantaneously regretted his decision as he found himself staring at himself raping Gokudera, who was smothered in the bedsheets.

The instantaneous traumatized Yamamoto screwed his eyes shut and started crying hard, he couldn't help it. The room seemed a living hell. Yamamoto, now screaming and bawling, not wanting to accept the horrifying truth, threw up and broke down under the smirking gaze of the main captor.

Yamamoto felt so much despair, self-hatred, and pity that he felt as though his head would crack. His heart most definitely did.

When Yamamoto was deposited back in his cell, Gokudera was curled up into a tight ball in the corner of the bed. When Yamamoto came in, Gokudera turned towards him, with a wary expression on his face as if he expected Yamamoto to come at him again.

The previous almost peaceful expression had been replaced by one of complete distrust.

Yamamoto felt the pain and shock coming all over again as he saw Gokudera's shocked and dead expression. Yamamoto put his hands up gingerly and back away as far as he could. This seemed to make Gokudera perhaps a little less on his guard, and Yamamoto was thankful for that much.

He didn't say anything. He didn't want to, and he wouldn't have been able to if he tried. Every ten minutes or so, he looked up gingerly and painfully to see Gokudera still watching him warily.

After almost an hour, Yamamoto knew that he must speak with Gokudera even if it killed him in the process. Not even bothering to try to keep the rush of emotions back, Yamamoto, with his voice shaking and cracking all over finally managed to get out five words with incredible difficulty.

"They… showed me… the… the tape…" Gokudera flinched violently at these words, and Yamamoto could see how Gokudera's chest was rising and falling more rapidly and irregularly than before at hearing this news.

The two stayed in this state for another almost fifteen minutes before Yamamoto, now desperate to somehow make amends that he knew was impossible to achieve, spoke again, pleading.

"Gokudera… You know that I was… completely high then… I didn't know a thing… before they showed me the…" He couldn't finish.

Gokudera took several deep breaths before turning to Yamamoto, a good several minutes later, his eyes glinting with fierce emotions still.

"You think I don't know that? If you had done it on purpose, one of us would not be alive now."

Gokudera's voice was as harsh as never before and his words were like a white-hot knife. However, the fact that he was answering in at least a relatively civilized manner (as in Gokudera wasn't trying to rip or explode his head off) meant that Gokudera had been thinking about it or trying to think about it reasonably. His answer also reflected that philosophy.

Yamamoto knew that the latter part of what Gokudera said was perfectly true. Gokudera would have either died trying to defend himself, or he would have killed Yamamoto to stop him for good.

Gokudera calmed his breath again, which had hitched up. But he stayed silent and retreated even after he had calmed himself down to a relatively normal state.

He didn't want to talk anymore. He wanted Yamamoto to get the fuck away from him. That still hadn't changed.

Yamamoto started slowly making his way to where Gokudera was sitting up on the bed. As Yamamoto approached, Gokudera folded his legs in on himself and wrapped his arms them protectively, eyeing Yamamoto fiercely. Yamamoto kneeled upright at the offside of the bed so that his and Gokudera's eyes were level.

When he braved enough to look into Gokudera's eyes, he was relieved to see that at least a miniscule amount of the hatred and resentment had retreated. But the feeling of the eyes were closed and barred against him. Just another painful reminder of how things would never be the same. Yamamoto, after fiercely debating with himself, slowly reached out a hand for Gokudera's. He felt like he needed to do that.

Gokudera pulled back and shifted way further back with a clearly enunciated "_Don't!._" in a shaking but piercing voice. He was trembling all over as he was completely taken over in terror.

He kept on having vague but extremely unpleasant and fearful flashbacks of his being raped. He would have completely lost it and would have flown away in a moment's notice if Yamamoto hadn't drawn back instantaneously.

Gokudera tried to prevent himself from shivering in disgust and fear because he knew that now, he had no reason to. It was incredibly hard to act normal though, and he didn't even try to loosen his nerves which were on fire. It was just a fact that Gokudera couldn't bring himself to trust Yamamoto right at this moment.

Gokudera felt somewhat like a 'wild' person newly introduced to all the majesty and cruelty of civilization. He was scared, shocked, and he just wanted out before long. Yamamoto felt the tears coming again, but he wiped them away before they started flowing.

Gokudera's expression didn't change much, but Gokudera felt his old warm feelings for Yamamoto returning very little somewhat after being buried in the trauma at the sight of Yamamoto crying. That didn't mean that things were the same between the two, though.

But at least they both understood that together.

But even though Gokudera felt sorry that Yamamoto was upset, the sight of Yamamoto crying made him pissed off through and through. He had been tortured, raped, violated in all ways possible before he had allowed himself to break down. So what was Yamamoto in crying over stupid shit like this?

Gokudera twisted his expression to express his dislike and barked out angrily, tremors breaking through his voice from time to time, "What are you to cry? Not like any of the shit that happened to me happened to you!"

Gokudera suddenly overcome with the desire to hurt Yamamoto as much as he could. Yamamoto realized that if he tried to do anything now, it would only serve to push Gokudera further from him. He choked out, "We'll…. We'll talk later…" before dashing off.

He wanted to throw up, commit suicide, break everything, but when he fled to the furthermost corner of the bathroom and turned on the showers to drown out all outside noise, all he did was cry.

He was sure that no other human being had ever felt such despair and shame.

Yamamoto couldn't sleep in the bathroom though, because at night, the bathroom was completely cut off and was airtight to boot. Yamamoto told himself that whatever happened to him, he would somehow straighten things out with Gokudera.

He slid out quickly before the petition could close completely and curled up in the farthest corner away from Gokudera before the both of them could get to fitful sleep. Both of them were so racked by nightmares of their own, that they didn't hear the other scream out during the long night.

For the next few days, it was the same.

Every time Yamamoto even so much as shifted his weight, Gokudera would go alert and pierce him with a deadly expression filled with the shades of fear and terror not forgotten.

Every time Gokudera so much as hitched a breath, Yamamoto looked up with a terrible guilt weighting him down.

But they were learning to deal with this. It was tit for tat; fear for fear; wariness for wariness on both sides.

It was in this condition when Gokudera was taken to be tortured the 'normal' way again.

"So, reconsidered yet?" the main captor said. He had a dangerous smile on his face. Gokudera didn't say anything. He had never felt such hatred in all his life for the main captor. Unfortunately for the main captor, he didn't know all of Gokudera's past and how hatred affected Gokudera more than anything else.

So although the torture session was the worst by far, that barrier of hatred in helping the enemy kept Gokudera from saying anything. But it was definitely harder, much much harder than before, especially after the last time.

Because Gokudera knew that they would push all his limits.

What was worse was that when Gokudera came back, there was no Yamamoto to take care of him. Of course, Gokudera had never actually accepted Yamamoto's help, but the thought helped. However, not only did he not want Yamamoto to touch him ever again, but Yamamoto also didn't offer his help because he was afraid of scaring Gokudera again.

He fretted constantly as he heard Gokudera's hisses in pain while in the shower even over the waterworks. Gokudera came out, fully clothed, and seeing Yamamoto, quickly darted far away from him, watching Yamamoto the whole time. But he must have trusted Yamamoto to some degree, because after sending a piercing glare, he quickly turned his back and went under the bed covers.

Yamamoto didn't move for fear of disturbing Gokudera. When Gokudera was fully asleep, he went to him and knelt by the bed gingerly, careful not to make any noise. Yamamoto didn't dare touch Gokudera. What if he did and Gokudera woke up?

Gokudera would probably jump to the conclusion that Yamamoto was trying to rape him again. So Yamamoto just knelt beside his broken lover and stood guard protectively over everything and anything, even himself.

When Gokudera didn't stir or seem to be having nightmares, he crept back to his corner and slept a little more peacefully than before.

In this way, the relationship, although they weren't doing anything, was slowly mending precisely because they weren't doing anything. Seeing the other brought back harsh memories (especially for Gokudera) but when alone or when the other was pretending not to be there, happy and warm late memories of their past life before their capture came back and pulled them close.

Gokudera no longer tensed up violently when Yamamoto came near him, and Yamamoto no longer was consumed with guilt/fear. They just barely tolerated each other. When the other was depressed (Yamamoto) or in pain (Gokudera) the other was allowed to come close, but nothing else.

Neither of them pressed for anything more or less. But other than that small physical presence, they barely interacted socially with one another and they barely spoke unless it was needed.

They were far more comfortable that way.

It was the stark contrast (almost) of their relationship of before.

But although their relationship would never be the same as before, that didn't stop them from slowly forming a whole new relationship together on the terms of both. A change happened one particular time.

This torture session had been so far the worst one. Yamamoto had fretted about twice as much as usual when they carried Gokudera in on a cot. The pale skin on his back was covered with blood, welts, and whip marks.

Gokudera, by his shallow breathing, was clearly in too much pain even to speak, but because of his damnable endurance, hadn't passed out. It was plain that Gokudera wasn't going to be moving anytime soon, but it was also clear from the dirty wounds that they needed to be washed directly if Gokudera didn't want massive infections to be on him.

And it went without even thinking that unless Gokudera was able to wash himself directly (which was impossible) Yamamoto would have to (since it was obvious that the no one else was going to be helping him).

But they both knew that since the traumatic incident, neither of them had so much as touched each other, and since before it had also been Yamamoto attacking Gokudera, it was going to be a awful experience for both of them. But neither of knew that it was actually going to happen.

Yamamoto was thinking, "Gokudera!… His wounds need to be cleaned, and he's not going to be able to do it himself and the wounds need to be cleaned now! But, the last time I actually touched him was _that time_… What if he just goes into shock along with everything else when he sees me going towards him? But he might die if I don't…!"

Gokudera, although he could barely think through his paralyzing pain, was thinking, "I feel like dying, but I don't want that…. The gashes that I got need to be washed straight away… damn it, why can't I move!…"

The two were both motionless. Gokudera flat on his stomach on the cot, Yamamoto stock still standing up across the room.

Fifteen minutes passed without anything happening, and all that happened was that Yamamoto was breathing so quietly that it was like he wasn't even breathing, and Gokudera's gasps became more faint from his loss of blood.

It was becoming quite apparent that something extremely unpleasant would happen to Gokudera if something wasn't done soon. Both of them knew this.

Yamamoto, however, was still too afraid to go near Gokudera for various reasons. He felt like a god-awful coward, but what was he to do? After another fifteen minutes had passed, Gokudera's condition became critical.

Gokudera managed to summon up the last vestiges of his strength to turn his head toward Yamamoto. He gave Yamamoto a look, a fearful but at the same time, pleading look. He wanted to keep his life, over everything else. He would risk it. Yamamoto had to do something. He went forward towards Gokudera, steeling himself to take whatever might happen. He slowly lifted Gokudera up from the cot and carried him to the showers.

He could feel Gokudera's hurt body tensing at his tough even despite himself. No matter what the circumstances, Gokudera couldn't help but feel fear and terror at having Yamamoto so close to him, their bodies touching.

Yamamoto understood that, and so he tried to not pay attention and to be a little more careful. They finally went through the few steps to the shower, but it seemed like they crossed gorges and went over mountains. This was going to be the hard part, akin to trusting each other while jumping off cliffs. There was no way that Gokudera was going to be washed when he still had his ripped clothing on him. Yamamoto decided to risk it.

He placed Gokudera gently on a step so that he wouldn't fall, went back a little and gently held Gokudera's hand as before.

"Gokudera… There's nothing wrong with me now… please, just trust me…" Yamamoto pleaded. He didn't even have to try to have the most pleading, begging, longing, hoping, trusting expression on.

He knelt in front of Gokudera so that their heads were level. Gokudera was halfway delirious by this point, but he still had enough control over his mind to hear and understand Yamamoto. After a long pause, during which Gokudera fought a major emotional war, he finally nodded once a little fearfully.

And so it began.

As soon as he had permission, Yamamoto went to work. He spoke to Gokudera soothingly, telling him all that he was going to do in the gentlest way possible.

"Gokudera… It's kind of hard to… wash your wounds when your clothes are getting in the way…" They both knew that Yamamoto was actually asking permission and seeing if it would be okay for Gokudera to subject himself to exposure.

Another heavy minute passed, before Gokudera, who had had his eyes open, closed them with finality. It was his way of showing that he would be okay. Slowly and carefully, Yamamoto removed Gokudera's shirt, cutting off the parts that were crusted with blood.

Gokudera was obviously tensed up. Through his torn and cut skin, the muscles of his back were quivering. Yamamoto fought the desire to throw up at the gruesome sight and turned on the shower slowly.

Gokudera, even though his strength was depleted, thrashed at the awful pain of the water impacting against him, and Yamamoto tried to keep him from moving too much. When all of the wounds had been washed with the shower-head water, came the worst part: applying medicine and bandaging

"Gokudera… I've finished with the washing and stuff, but… they still need to be… treated and bandaged and stuff…. Is that alright? With you?..."

Gokudera groaned. Yamamoto just took that as a yes and started to bandage his friend.

When they were finally done, Yamamoto took Gokudera back to the room and placed him on the bed before he took his usual stance across the room. He was filled with a mixture of emotions, but he felt more at peace than before, that was one thing for certain. He stayed up with little difficulty to see if Gokudera was sleeping.

That night, neither of them had nightmares.

The next morning, Yamamoto got up first, and quickly washed. To avoid any awkwardness between them, he had made it so that there would never be a time when they would, perchance, accidentally see the other unclothed.

Of course, last night had been an exception, but last night had been last night. That was something completely different.

Yamamoto did his best to keep telling himself that to get rid of false hopes. Gokudera, still exhausted, was still sleeping. His face had a wince of pain on it, but he was sleeping soundly considering all things. Yamamoto knew when he woke up because the wince on his face grew about tenfold more pronounced and Gokudera cried out like a small dying animal in pain.

In that instant, Yamamoto forgot everything and just rushed over to Gokudera. He pushed the silver locks from Gokudera's face hurriedly and almost shouted, "Gokudera! What's wrong!"

Gokudera was too occupied with trying to handle the pain at first, but a few minutes later, when he seemed a little in control of himself, he groaned/whispered out, "Hurts… so stiff…." Gokudera tried to sit up, but he only managed to lift himself up a few inches before he fell right back down with a piercing cry.

Yamamoto gasped out, "Are you okay, Gokudera?" realizing two seconds later that the answer was an obvious no.

After fretting about what to do, backing away for fear and then coming back again in worry, he stuttered out, "Gokudera, can I check your bandages?"

When he got no answer except another groan of pain, he hurriedly added, "I won't do anything else, just check the bandages, I swear," to reassure Gokudera.

Gokudera should have been in too much pain to consider anything, but his anxiety at having his rapist so close to him overpowered even that terrible anguish.

He held up a hand when Yamamoto started coming towards him.

"Don't… I can deal…," he said, panting with exhaustion visibly.

Yamamoto stopped, but then when he decided that Gokudera was too stubborn for his own good, started pleading and trying to persuade Gokudera again. Finally, Gokudera stopped protesting. Yamamoto threw back the covers and looked down at the blood-soaked bandages.

Sucking in breath in shock, he ran to the bathroom for a sponge, a towel, and more meds. He rushed back with the necessary items and lifted Gokudera up gently so that Gokudera was sitting up.

Gokudera was now in enough control to realize how close Yamamoto was and his eyes had a mixture of emotions written clearly in them. Yamamoto set the things down next to Gokudera on the bed. He was holding on to Gokudera's shoulder to prevent Gokudera from falling.

Gokudera was averting his gaze, but every so often he sent Yamamoto a piercing look that spoke doubting trust and fear. Yamamoto spoke in low tones.

"I won't do anything. I'm trying to help you. The bandages need to be changed and you can't do it on your own just now. You've lost too much blood."

Gokudera looked away and then looked back, but he didn't do anything to stop Yamamoto, which was tantamount to approval. Yamamoto tried to get it over with as fast as possible. He knew that Gokudera, since he had regained his senses somewhat, would be more wary at Yamamoto so close to him, and he also knew that taking the bandages off would be a painful process that Gokudera would want to go through as fast and quickly as possible.

But holding Gokudera up and trying to rip the bandages off wasn't an easy process. It didn't help that every time he so much as touched the bandages, Gokudera let out a sharp yelp of pain.

Desperate for a solution, he put one of Gokudera's hands on his shoulder, breathlessly said, "Just don't think, alright? It'll be over fast. I'm trying to do this as fast as possible, and I can't hold you up at the same time," before stripping off one of the bandages.

Gokudera flinched violently at the pain and his nails dug into Yamamoto's shoulder. When finally the last strip had been torn off, both of them collapsed, exhausted.

At least they had gone through that together.

Several hours later, Gokudera was freshly bandaged, washed, and clothed, Yamamoto in about the same state. They sat on the edge of the bed together, not looking at each other. Yamamoto decided that he would settle things now.

He wanted to have a 'heart-to-heart' talk of sorts with Gokudera.

"So… I know that after _that_ …things won't ever be the same for us… but can we…possibly….start again? Since you know that…well…I definitely didn't…and wouldn't ever… not on purpose…"

Gokudera continued staring at the wall, but he breathed deeply and looked to Yamamoto. After just staring, he finally opened his mouth.

"I don't know why you're asking me for forgiveness when it wasn't actually you doing _that_ to me… Wait…Let me elaborate on that…"

Gokudera looked away and laughed once bitterly.

"I guess the way to put it to explain the way I've been behaving is that my feelings for you, as in for your personality, are exactly the same… You've done a lot for me, taking care of me and such, and I'm grateful for that. But I guess…" He looked away, a little embarrassed.

"I suppose that I'm acting like this because I hate… your physical form, your body, in a way…" He laughed again, and this time, the bitterness wasn't present in it anymore.

"Yeah, it's as simple as that…That's just it." He looked at Yamamoto, his expression serious.

Gokudera, somewhere deep inside him, knew that he was still hurt like a bitch, but he was trying. Yamamoto knew that Gokudera was essentially demanding to know his thoughts.

Yamamoto sighed. Where to begin?

"I…never thought that this would happen, of course… and you can't imagine the shock that I got to see, what happened... I think a part of me still doubts my own integrity for that.. I feel like I should have been able to overcome the drugs…But after all that when I took in everything, all I could think about was how you must have felt, how you must still feel now…and I understand that this sort of thing takes time… not that I'm forcing to choose, but…uh…you know how…"

Yamamoto felt himself lose his words and stuttering, and so he just cut off with a barely visible blush.

Gokudera snorted and turned away, and for minute, Yamamoto was afraid that he had said something wrong, but Gokudera looked back with a coy smile and said, "Idiot," just like the way he used to.

Then wonder of wonders, he said, "You don't have to struggle with words anymore. I know what you're trying to say." It was going to be okay between the two.

They talked about random things, laughed over stupid things, and teased each other for no reason. Sometimes, things didn't quite meet, and both of them still had to be careful, but things were getting to be the way they had been again. They were happier than ever before, and it was becoming apparent that both of them trusted each other more than ever.

**Just saying, people, I just made this whole thing up.**

**I seriously doubt that real rape victims would act like this.**

**I sure as hell know that if I was in Gokudera's position, I would not even be speaking coherently in my mindless rage/ trauma.**

**Sorry for the language, but hope you liked the story!**

**Review please! That would be much appreciated!**


	6. Back to Living

**Hey, people! This is finally when Gokudera and Yamamoto…what am I doing… just read the story! At least the unpleasant stuff is over and done with!**

It was in this state that they found the chance to escape.

The Mafia Family which had captured and tortured them had many enemies besides Vongola, and several small enemy families had attacked the base where Yamamoto and Gokudera were at.

It just so turned out that an especially explosive shell landed near the prison cell where Yamamoto and Gokudera were being held. Through the little hole that was provided, they managed to escape amidst the chaos reigning over that place.

Without even speaking, they led each other to the park next to the Vongola Headquarters. They needed some time before they faced the other Vongola members.

They spoke in low tones as they walked, checking every so often to make sure that no one was eavesdropping on them, and they agreed on many things together and on their new life.

It went without saying that _that incident_ was something that no one outside the necessary confidents would ever know about.

The two had been gone for almost four months, as a filched newspaper from the public trash-bin told them. They breathed in excited gasps as they walked towards the Vongola base.

When they got there, everything was silent. It seemed that everyone was just simply working in their offices. Gokudera snickered despite himself.

"Seems like the bastards here just couldn't get creative without us…heh, especially me, of course."

He smiled daringly at Yamamoto. Yamamoto rolled his eyes and poked Gokudera, smiling.

"Yeah, yeah, it's all about you, my dear Vongola right-hand man."

Gokudera grinned again, and then, before they knew it, they were in front of Tsuna's office. They looked at each other, reminding each other of the promises of secrecy that they had made each other at the park, knocked (just out of habit) and went in.

Tsuna haggardly started automatically saying, "Yeah?..." before he realized who exactly had come in. "Oh!..." he shouted before he rushed forwards and pulled the both of them into a fierce embrace.

When he finally let go, the Vongola Tenth's eyes were misty, but his face was set.

"Where the hell have you two been? The whole of Vongola has been upside-down for the past almost four months! What happened to you?"

Gokudera averted his gaze to the side, while Yamamoto looked down at the floor. Then, with a sigh, Gokudera faced Tsuna.

"Did you really think that we went on a cruise or something? On the night of Yamamoto's birthday, we were just wandering around on the streets when we were ambushed by another Mafia Family. We were held in their cells for the entire time. We only just escaped by a fluke of luck today. (His expression softened just a little out of adoration to the Tenth.) I'm sorry to have caused you so much worry."

Tsuna's expressions fluctuated wildly as he heard what Gokudera said.

He stuttered out, "Why…What…Did anything happen to you?"

Gokudera sighed again. He nodded his head at Yamamoto. Yamamoto led Gokudera to the nearest seat before giving Tsuna a brief overview.

"Well… we were both kept in this underground cell…and… well… We were just locked up all the time. They didn't do much of anything to me, but Gokudera…they knew that he is the Vongola right-hand man, and so… Gokudera got tortured…a lot, I'm afraid…"

Yamamoto glanced at Gokudera and sat down next to him. Tsuna seemed to have lost all strength and he mindlessly sat down on top of the nearest flat surface, his desk.

"Tor…tortured? A lot? Like, what do you mean he was tortured a lot?"

Gokudera took a breath. Anyone who could have dared to look straight at Gokudera's face would have seen the sharp edges of all his facial features, set and firm.

"I'm still right here, you know. You don't have to refer to me in the third person. As in tortured, I'll put it bluntly. It's past me anyway. Yamamoto means, basically, a variety of things. Slapped, whipped, cut, twisted, electrified, drowned, etc."

Tsuna looked completely shocked and worried at hearing Gokudera state these things so bluntly. It was just shocking to hear those things at all.

"All…of those things….they did to you?" Tsuna finally managed to get out.

"Yeah, pretty much. Those bastards…at least they didn't get too, too creative." Both he and Yamamoto knew what the 'too's were about.

Tsuna closed his eyes and didn't say anything for a long time. When he opened his eyes, the Sky Flame was burning in them.

"What Family? You know?"

Yamamoto looked at Gokudera. They had been expecting this. Yamamoto acted as the spokesperson.

"Tsuna… We don't want to kick up a huge fuss and showcase the Vongola power by taking everything and everyone. What if the news about our capture came out? We don't want that. Gokudera might have been laid low a couple of times because of that damnable torture and stuff, but they didn't break him because they weren't able to see into him. And also because you know.. Gokudera is just Gokudera…But we all know what Gokudera is like. He observed everything, and he's certain that when he gets his full strength back, and with a little touch-up on training and skills, we'll be able to take care of them by ourselves. And you know how Gokudera is… always considering every option, thinking about every alternative. And he still came to this conclusion. They're all sneaky bastards from the start, but if we attack first, whether they were unaware or not, we'll get them. Gokudera and I already agreed on this. Please, Tsuna, don't tell the others anything. Just tell them that we were captured, but not about… the other things. It's bad enough, God knows."

Tsuna nodded. When he spoke, Yamamoto and Gokudera had no choice but to believe him. It was Tsuna.

"I won't tell anyone, but it's not going to be spreading rumors or whatever about you. If you two are so intent on doing things your own way, don't put anything on me. I put it on you to inform people about what happened, but not to tell details. One more thing before you go. I expect a report, a personal report, about what happened to the both of you within three days."

Tsuna was in his boss-mode as he always did whenever he was shocked.

Gokudera smiled and hugged Tsuna tightly. Yamamoto watched on and tried not to be jealous unsuccessfully. When he saw how Gokudera's face was beginning to color as it always did whenever he was just about to get emotional, Yamamoto felt much more than a twinge of awkwardness.

Coughing loudly, he tugged on Gokudera's elbow. Gokudera hugged Tsuna tightly for several more intensive moments before he let go with a relieved smile at Tsuna, shaking Yamamoto's hand off of him with more than just an annoyed look.

He still wasn't ready to have Yamamoto touch him. It would be a long time before that.

Gokudera did try to act normal, but trauma like what he had experience due to Yamamoto couldn't be forgotten or erased or forgiven so easily. Tsuna caught the implications.

"Why, is there anything wrong between you two? You guys are different…"

Gokudera colored angrily at both himself and Yamamoto before turning to his tenth, and muttering, "It's nothing, Tsuna. He and I just changed after the experience…es… and all, that's all. Tell you what, I'll come back to you."

With that promise, he gestured to Yamamoto and went out to go meet all the rest of the people.

It was finally done and over with. After being bombarded by at least a hundred people or more for at least three hours, they finally yelled out that they needed rest and went off to Gokudera's apartment together like they had done before their capture.

Only they both knew (well, except for maybe Tsuna) that things weren't the same as before. Once the door was closed, Gokudera mindless pushed Yamamoto to the living room and muttered, "Stay there, will you?" while he slipped in his own bedroom.

Yamamoto stood right outside the bedroom door, which was just cracked slightly open. He didn't hear anything except Gokudera's heavy and stressed breathing. Then, he could have been imagining it, he thought he heard hushed sniffles. Not able to bear the suspense, he barged right in.

He was right.

Gokudera was lying on top of his bed, which had been abandoned for almost four months, and he was burrowing softly into the covers, sprawled across the bed vulnerably. Yamamoto felt tears coming himself. They were back home.

When Gokudera saw him, the previous expression of happy relief turned into an expression of anger.

"Who the hell told you to come in here? Although you treat it as such, this is _not_ your place, god damn it! I thought I told you to stay in the fucking living room!"

Gokudera was obvious pissed-off with having his private moment interrupted. Gokudera went on.

"Another thing you should know and remember. We are _not_ still back at that shitty prison cell. We're back at Vongola, and we'll act the way the Vongola members expect us to. I expect nothing otherwise from myself, and you'd better not screw things up. _Go outside_."

Yamamoto had no choice but to sadly obey. Gokudera was right, after all. When Gokudera came back out a few minutes later, he had a serious look on his face. Rather rudely, he curtly said, "Why are you here again? I don't recall inviting you here."

Of course, that was tantamount to a "Get the fuck out of here." Yamamoto sighed sadly again.

"Gokudera, please… I don't want to just go to my empty apartment all by myself."

"You were perfectly fine with it before, to my recall," Gokudera retorted unforgivingly.

"Gokudera.. you know that things are different now. Why are you being so base?"

"Base? Che…I'll tell you why... Actually, no I won't. Think back to when this all first started. I don't mean the capture. I mean us. It started out similar to this, didn't it? Even the atmosphere and the setting are similar. Have you learned anything about me since then? Why do you think? You already know the answer, if I know you."

Yamamoto bit his lip. He knew that Gokudera had just wanted to be alone because of his internal stress and that his physical presence wasn't helping Gokudera relieve his internal turmoil. He knew that he shouldn't have done that and that in this scenario, he was in the wrong, like always, it seemed. But he just wanted to be…. He just wanted….

"I just…. I just wanted to make you feel better…"

"Che…make me feel better, you say? Better?" Gokudera's voice was rising in fury.

"Did all the shit that you've done to me make me feel better, you dick?" Gokudera yelled, ripping his shirt open to reveal all the marks that Yamamoto had left on him.

Yamamoto closed his eyes. Gokudera had healed just a little bit, but the marks were plainly visible, and they were scarring across Gokudera's pale skin. He flinched violently when he heard Gokudera's words even with his head turned away.

"Gokudera... You….How can you….How can you say that?..." He felt pained, more than before, if that was possible. He turned his head away as he began to feel himself about to break down again.

He couldn't believe how this situation had changed so fast all because he had wanted to check up on Gokudera. He was torturing himself inside for going against what Gokudera had asked him to do.

It had been such a simple request. Why couldn't he have just done it? But deep inside he knew that it wasn't just that. He had been selfish.

"Crying are you? Well I already did loads of that. I'm done with it. And you should be too. It doesn't change anything," Gokudera barked harshly, his voice turning husky with stress. Yamamoto was now too shocked.

He started at Gokudera quizzically before spitting out, "Why're _you_ being such a dick?"

Gokudera closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the depths of hell could be seen within them. He smiled dangerously in that cynical way of his before, with as serious an expression as how scary the previous expression had been, he spoke in a loaded voice.

"Don't you mean asshole, you rapist?"

Yamamoto's felt his world collapse and all his strength go out of him at hearing those words from Gokudera, but his voice only shook a little when he next spoke.

"Gokudera…Gokudera, you…don't mean that."

"Who are you, to tell me what I mean and what I don't? It's obvious you don't know anything about me."

Gokudera wasn't yelling in uncontrolled fury anymore. He was in check of himself, and he was calmly and sadistically aiming to hurt.

Yamamoto quickly lowered himself down to his knees before his legs could collapse. Gokudera just turned and walked away into his bedroom, leaving Yamamoto stranded in his own despair in the living room.

Yamamoto didn't cry. He had no tears left in him as he thought of all that Gokudera had said. He didn't need to press himself to forgive Gokudera, there was nothing to forgive and if there had been, he had already done it without even thinking.

He was just trying to figure out the impossible puzzle that was Gokudera. Thinking and thinking and unable to find the answer, he fell asleep on Gokudera's floor rug.

When he awoke, unexpectedly a little past daybreak, he was immensely surprised to see a rather disheveled Gokudera sitting on the couch near him and looking at him carefully. Yamamoto knew that they were both thinking about the argument that they had had the other night.

Before Yamamoto could do much more than just look at Gokudera, Gokudera pushed his silver strands from his face and said, "Sleep Alright? The floor mustn't have been very comfortable. You could have asked for something."

Yamamoto noticed and appreciated how Gokudera didn't say that he could have just damn well gone to his own apartment. Obviously Gokudera was trying to make amends somewhat by being a bit more careful and controlled with his word choice.

"It was okay…."

Gokudera nodded, seemed to shake himself, and said, "About yesterday night, I'm not going to say that I didn't mean that, because at the time, all I could think about was how to hurt you the most. But, I've thought and I've been thinking, and I realize that although that might have been what I really felt at the time, I don't feel that anymore. Me apologizing won't change anything, I know, just what you did to me won't ever get made up for. It's just the truth. But I just thought you should know that you shouldn't take what I said to heart, because I never did with what you did."

Gokudera never stopped looking at Yamamoto the whole time he spoke. Although what Gokudera was saying to him made him squirm a little in discomfort from his position on floor, Yamamoto didn't break eye contact either.

He remained motionless as Gokudera kneeled down in front of him, placed his hands on his shoulders in a solemn movement, and then left. Without turning back, Gokudera paused just before he went into the next room.

"Come or go, do as you like," he said with tenderness. He wasn't trying to just appease Yamamoto or making an argument to just forget and make up.

Gokudera, having lived and experienced enough to know the power of words and the weighty impact they could have, was actively showing, and thereby proving to Yamamoto his willingness to start again.

In effect, he was imploring Yamamoto to understand him.

Yamamoto felt a sweet pain as he watched Gokudera gently leave him. He didn't think that he had ever felt such love for the man whom he had been with through so much together. He comfortably knelt on the floor, listening and feeling with his senses the sounds of Gokudera's daily Vongola life.

When he was sure that Gokudera was completely occupied, he quietly slipped out of the Storm condominium. That day served as a resting period for both of them to organize their thoughts and get back in. The next day, it took Gokudera quite a while to get all the Guardians to shut up and get the menial members to clear out.

Everyone wanted to know how Gokudera and Yamamoto were and just where they had been. Gokudera appreciated their concern, but he had a load of work to do, so he chased them all away as politely as his high temper allowed him and started to hold the conference.

Yamamoto came in the conference room just as the meeting began.

Without even looking up from his papers Gokudera said a curt, "Yamamoto," in greeting. Softly, Yamamoto responded in kind before smiling rather sheepishly at the others and taking his usual seat.

After Gokudera and Yamamoto had been updated on all the things they had missed, they took some time to take it in and evaluate it. When they had processed the information, Gokudera took the initiative as usual and gave assignments to everyone and everyone went to their own offices to do the work.

When it was around mid-day, Gokudera found a carefree thought of Yamamoto pass through his head over the thoughts of his work. He was startled at the thought at first, and then irked by it.

Cursing himself for staying around Ryohei too much – he was either too harsh with Yamamoto or too soft with him it seemed – he forced himself to concentrate on nothing but work.

The thought of Yamamoto stayed in the back of his mind though.

Yamamoto also, when it was noonday, found himself instinctively looking at the clock as he used to do before the capture. It was this time in which he had eagerly finished up his work to go see Gokudera. He stopped his work now, but he didn't go for Gokudera.

He closed his eyes, sat back, and thought about his lost lover alone.

It was finally lunchtime. All the Vongola members met in the foyer as always. Gokudera was just exchanging greetings and making small talk, while Yamamoto was standing across from him in the hallway, wanting but not wanting at the same time. But when all the others were occupied with getting and settling with their lunches, Yamamoto approached Gokudera.

He didn't say anything at first, but after a few moments of staring at the floor, he finally said, "Want to come?" Gokudera contemplated solemnly before saying, "Sure, you lead." It was the first time that Gokudera had willingly submitted himself to something like this.

Leading each other, they went up to the roof together. Not speaking to each other at all, just communicating what little they had to with simple hand gestures, Gokudera and Yamamoto soon found themselves sitting cross-legged across from each other on the bright cement top of the Vongola Headquarters.

They felt the un-expectantly warm sun on their backs and shoulders as they casually ate together for the first time since coming back to Vongola. They remained silent, listening to each other's heartbeats.

When Gokudera was done eating (he didn't have much of an appetite), he just put his plate somewhere and continued to just sit still next to Yamamoto. He looked diagonally at the far distance, his bangs covering his face. When he sighed and looked up because he figured that Yamamoto was also done, he found himself looking straight at a paused Yamamoto who was curiously watching him.

Gokudera stared back for moment before resuming his stare at the distance and saying, "You should finish eating, Yamamoto."

Yamamoto smiled very slightly before saying quietly. "Just call me Takeshi. We've been through everything, and I think we know each other close enough."

Gokudera didn't answer, just stared away. Yamamoto didn't press for Gokudera to repeat him and simply went back to eating. Gokudera didn't look at Yamamoto, just stood up and started walking away slowly when he could tell that Yamamoto had finished and was just sitting there.

He walked all the way to the stairwell, and just when he was about halfway, he said, "Coming, Takeshi?" before going the rest of the way to the stairs. He hid a sad smile behind his silver hair when he heard Yamamoto scrambling to catch up.

They went down to the foyer to go to their own offices and to go back to work, Gokudera with a solemn visage, Yamamoto with an astonished one.

They were still like that when they separated.

Gokudera cursed himself quietly in his office. He wasn't regretting his decision to follow Yamamoto's request/wish, but… he felt somehow that he had given in. He would have slammed his hands against the wall if Tsuna's office hadn't been right beside his.

But the office locations being what they were, he couldn't suddenly burst out into a fit of temper. Reminding himself that he was not some anger-management needing teenager, he went to his desk and threw himself into his work.

When the evening bell rang to signify that the Vongola work day was over, Gokudera paused his work-flow just enough to bid Tsuna a good night before he went straight back to work. He continued making important phone calls, sending documentary emails, setting up plans and schedules for the next few weeks, and writing reports.

He realized that he was purposely doing everything else to avoid getting to the personal report that Tsuna was demanding of him, but he didn't feel cowardly. He did have an air-tight reason for his reluctance.

But when he had made up all his work (there wasn't much since not much had been going on during his absence) and had done several weeks worth in advance, he decided that he couldn't put if off anymore.

Sighing, he looked up from the desk surface and from his laptop and papers for the first time since lunchtime. He didn't react at seeing a tall, dark-haired someone standing at his doorway threshold. He however, didn't ignore the presence either. Some things, Gokudera knew, couldn't just be passed off. They had to be confronted outright.

Sighing inwardly, he spoke to Yamamoto, looking directly at him in an official manner.

"So, you are here because?..." Gokudera asked with his head cocked quizzically to the side.

Yamamoto smiled a little, waved the files which he was holding in one hand, and said, "I know why you're sighing."

Gokudera rolled his eyes, and the sight of Gokudera doing that brought a rush of teenage memories to Yamamoto.

Gokudera snorted, "Che… What for, then?" Yamamoto stopped smiling at the old memories.

"You're writing the personal report, aren't you?"

Gokudera wasn't surprised to hear that Yamamoto knew his thoughts. Neither of them thought about much else but the report nowadays. It was due soon, and neither of them had written so much as a word about _that_ incident.

Gokudera had written everything before and after, but he still hadn't written about _that_ incident. He was considering. Yamamoto seemed to have found the solution to the problem, however.

"Gokudera, I wrote the entire report, and I didn't send it yet because I wanted to make sure with you, first, but I filled the part with the incident with a convincing story! It's just that we got into a fight, one about something stupid just because we were stressed, and that we had a really hard time making up. I thought about just leaving the whole thing out, but everyone has noticed that something has changed about us, so I had to put in something. Aren't I genius?"

Yamamoto seemed to be very pleased with himself and with the files which he was holding tightly. Gokudera held out a quiet but demanding hand for the files, which Yamamoto, still smiling expectantly, handed over to him eagerly.

Yamamoto knew that Gokudera preferred to be left alone whenever he read anything, but this was different so he stood as far away as he could while still observing Gokudera's expression. He noticed that Gokudera's expression didn't change at all as he carefully but quickly read through Yamamoto's report. He handed it back to Yamamoto, who was patiently waiting for a reply.

Gokudera said, "Do you really think that your story is convincing, first off, and second, did you really think that I would do something like this to Tsuna?" He didn't say anything else, but Yamamoto suddenly felt very young, in a way.

Gokudera continued without waiting for a reply. "I told you, Tsuna is more a god to me than my boss. I may lie to, cheat, steal from all others, but I would never do any such act to Tsuna. The reason why I haven't written it yet is that I'm trying to figure out the best way to word it properly, telling the truth without completely shocking Tsuna."

Yamamoto had remained silent for the first part of what Gokudera was saying, but when he heard the latter, he yelped, "No! You can't tell something like that to anyone, even if that person may be Tsuna! Think reason, Gokudera!"

Gokudera snapped, "Do you think that I am relishing telling anyone about this? I'm trying to keep the last of what bare integrity I may have left, and this is the way I'm doing it. I've been everything but killed in body and broken in spirit, and I don't feel like having my own morals forced on me by anyone."

Yamamoto shut up then. He knew better than to argue with Gokudera when Gokudera was like this. A part of him had always known that it was wrong to try to deceive Tsuna anyways. They both looked at each other tentatively, one gaze flooded with shame, the other storming with passion. Gokudera stood up and walked over to Yamamoto, motioning for him to come in the office.

When Yamamoto stepped in to the center of the room, Gokudera looked around the hallway, and then shut and locked the door firmly. Now, no one except for Gokudera could come in or go out of the room. Precautions were precautions no matter who the people were.

He was only going to speak his mind, and if Takeshi couldn't deal with it, then that was just too bad.

"I'm going to tell Tsuna, and that's final. However, damn me and you if any part of this situation gets blown up even more than it already is. I'm going straight for once in my life, and you're trying to stop me now?" Gokudera scowled in that way that only he could do.

Yamamoto thought for a moment. He wanted Gokudera to be honest, and he knew that Gokudera would only start being honest with him if he started being honest in general. But this? Yamamoto thought of a condition that he would never back down on.

"I know what this means to you, so I won't try to dissuade you anymore. But even it's going to be awkward and/or painful, I'm staying right here while you write and I'll help you to write and edit it."

Gokudera said, "Fair enough. You can sit there," and opened up his laptop file of his report to begin telling the story that changed his and Yamamoto's life forever.

That night, they went to Tsuna's office during the 'casual-time' period. Tsuna had obviously been expecting them. Gokudera coughed before clearly saying, "Tenth, Yamamoto and I decided to send in a draft together. We hope that that's okay with you. We have something to ask you."

Tsuna nodded his consent to the first, and nodded his permission at the latter. "Yeah, what is it?"

Gokudera acted as the spokesperson again. "First of all, everything and anything that we just handed in to you must remain confidential and on no circumstances are they to be publicized to anyone. Yamamoto and I deleted it off our laptops and shredded whatever hard-drafts. You currently have the last final copy. Second, that copy must be destroyed directly after reading. This goes with the first condition. Third, Yamamoto and I won't stand and stare as you read it, but we must be somewhere close by so we can straighten out any misunderstandings. But Yamamoto and I, we were mostly clear about everything, and we included personal notes to decrease the chance of any confusion, so don't stress about that one. Read the personal notes at the very end after you've read the report. Do you agree to these conditions?"

Tsuna was frowning a little. Just how serious was this matter and document? But there must be a reason, so Tsuna consented and had them sit and stay inside a small guest placement cubicle directly connected to his office. Tsuna began to read at a steady pace, he would find out the secrets between his Guardians at last.

Gokudera and Yamamoto went to the guest cubicle. Gokudera put his elbows on his knees and placed his head between his hands, an extreme version of Rodin's the Thinking Man. Yamamoto walked around briskly and fretted. They were both, on some insane chance of fate, thinking the same thing, but reacting differently. Both of them were thinking, 'Will Tsuna ever truly understand our relationship?' They thought nothing else.

Meanwhile, Tsuna had just read the part about _the_ incident. He couldn't read on for a moment because he was so shocked. It wasn't that the incident was written in detail or anything – it was only a few sentences – but still.

Forcing himself to keep reading so that he could get to the personal notes he read fast through everything else. He was almost panting by the time he got to the personal notes. With still shaking hands, he read Yamamoto's. (He always saved Gokudera's for last.)

Yamamoto's note said: "Now you know why we stress confidentiality so much. About that second to last paragraph. One aspect that I can't stress enough is that I had no idea until Gokudera started reacting very strongly every time I was around. We had our troubles over _that_ but Gokudera knows that I was drugged, so we're starting over. It's really very hard for Gokudera to deal with this, and he must be treated with great care, but my feelings, I think, are just as severe as his in a different way. If you know me at all and about how I feel for Gokudera, you would know this."

Tsuna shuddered at the great passion that was conveying itself from Yamamoto's note, and after taking a deep breath, moved on to Gokudera's. All it said was, "I'll speak with you later about this."

Tsuna had to take breather before he could force himself to summon his waiting Guardians back in. Yamamoto and Gokudera, having known that it would come to this sooner or later, weren't awkward at all, in fact, they seemed to be taking silent comfort from one another.

Tsuna didn't feel nervous, he was too kind-hearted for that, but he felt pain for his Guardians. He spoke.

"None of this will ever go anywhere, I swear."

He handed the last copy back to Gokudera. Gokudera immediately went to the nearest shredder and shredded the last piece of solid evidence into oblivion. Tsuna spoke when the shredder had done its work.

"I can't say that I know what you two feel, I still need to organize my thoughts fully. However, I think that you two should just get it done with and go back to the place where you two were held."

Gokudera's voice rang out clearly in the absolute silence that followed.

"Yamamoto and I, we made plans to go there today. I can't promise anything, but you can be sure that there will be one Mafia family not present anymore on the Vindice record list by tomorrow. We'll come back when it's over. But you should take into account that it could take quite a while. We'll speak later, Tenth. Meanwhile, please keep this to yourself, you know how it goes."

Yamamoto and Gokudera then left without further ado to go to and get their revenge on the ones who had inflicted this indignity on them. It was time to settle the ultimate score.

If anyone knew anything about how Gokudera settled scores, in that mysterious way of his which he wielded so perfectly and effectively each time, they would have been frightened out of their minds.

If anyone knew anything about how Yamamoto came back, in that quiet violent way of his, they would have been scared out of their wits.

The combination was unimaginable, but it shook Mafia to the core.

Gokudera was still hurt from the torture (although he had improved dramatically since) and he still slightly limped unconsciously (from _that_ incident). Yamamoto felt like it was all his fault (which it was), so he practically begged Gokudera to let him support him.

Gokudera insulted him loudly and cussed out the earth and everything in it, but he let Yamamoto hold on to his arm and he clamped his hand on Yamamoto's wrist when the slight but uncomfortable pain of just briskly walking was getting to him.

As they got closer and closer to the place where they had been captivated, Yamamoto felt how Gokudera was cramping down on his wrist like too-tight handcuffs. Obviously Gokudera would be feeling a lot just about now.

Yamamoto also found himself gripping Gokudera more tightly than intended, as he figured out when he noticed Gokudera staring daggers at him and glancing pointedly at his suffocating forearm.

Moving closer and closer to their final destination made them more and more nervous with every step. However, changes could be seen in both of them Whereas Gokudera's grip had seemed needing and pained at the beginning, now it was firm.

When Yamamoto looked at Gokudera's facial expression, he could see that the jaw line was firmly set and that the emerald eyes burned clear flame. When they reached the highway alleyway that led directly straight on to the offending Mafia family Head base, Gokudera suddenly released his grip and roughly shook his shoulder out of Yamamoto's hold.

Yamamoto had sort of expected Gokudera to lose his will-power and to become at least a little wary, but Gokudera was clearly nowhere near these feelings.

Gokudera's pace quickened with an official tandem and everything about him- from his facial settings, to his shoulder blades, to his tight muscles-was cut sharp.

Gokudera could truly have compared to Reborn in a brief moment when he purposely strided along in his Armani suit. Yamamoto felt like a child calling his buff father for help from a bully as he scurried along in Gokudera's wake.

"Get ready, Takeshi," was all that Gokudera said as a warning before he took out the outside watch-guard members with some well-placed explosion shells. Yamamoto also went to action, using his sword and flames to scythe a path through in which Gokudera would leave nothing but death and destruction behind.

It wasn't long before they arrived at the heart of the Headquarters, with everything eliminated everywhere else. Opening up his System C.A.I. and his various box weapons and web-ranges explosives, Gokudera unleashed blast after remorseless blast all around the Headquarters, effectively causing it to collapse.

Yamamoto slashed his way through the chaos, taking out the distracted crucial points. However, they weren't done yet. They barged in the Headquarters to the underground, where they had been kept. It was there, also, they knew, that the main office was situated.

They only looked forward; everything behind them was now harmonizing into ashes and dust, swept clean by the wind and the waves of flame. They lost themselves to violence and the dying moans of those they left behind in their rampage seemed to them the distant calls of seagulls as they strolled on the beach.

In these moments, they were no longer human.

Yamamoto noticed that Gokudera was slowing down now, but not because he was tired. Gokudera's silver hair was flashing everywhere, as were his emerald eyes, and he didn't seem to be affected by the realization of how many people he was killing.

Gokudera had stopped viewing those creatures as humans a long time ago.

Gokudera seemed, even, to be enjoying himself, by the glint of his facial setting, but Yamamoto knew there was another reason. No matter what happened, Gokudera wouldn't and couldn't forget what had happened to him here when with Yamamoto.

Yamamoto just thanked whatever deities controlled Gokudera that Gokudera was letting his anger out on this family, not at him.

Yamamoto also noticed a particular difference in the way that Gokudera was fighting now. Gokudera usually was loud, shouting orders, cussing out in every word in every language he knew (and fluently at that).

But now, he was completely silent except for the serious cutting warning or instruction at Yamamoto or the occasional grunts of residue blast. Gokudera must be in a really very seriously foul mood, Yamamoto knew.

Yamamoto, even as he fought madly, was mostly defending Gokudera rather than attacking. He didn't need to attack at all by the way that the Storm Guardian was in full rampage.

They finally reached the bottom floor, where they had been kept and where the main office was. It took Gokudera a bit more effort to get past the guards. Whirling over the corner like a whirlwind, Gokudera speeded his way towards the rows of armored gunmen waiting for him.

The System C.A.I. blocked the bullets while Gokudera's Storm laser bursts swept across cleanly. The gunmen in the rows fell, but other attacks came as well. Sniper bullets hit Gokudera and Yamamoto, but none of them hit any crucial areas.

Yamamoto managed to clear the air of smoke and bullets with his Rain flame, while Gokudera fought off the army of swordsmen which were now coming his way. Yamamoto quickly joined him. When finally all the guards were taken care of, both Gokudera and Yamamoto were scratched, cut, pierced, and wounded, but the adrenaline in their blood overcame all that.

Yamamoto spoke in a conversational sentence for the first time since they left the Vongola base.

"Gokudera, we should hunt for the main captor and be done with this."

Gokudera ignored him and started walking down the hallway.

"Gokudera! Where you going?"

Gokudera, without turning back, answered. "He's here in the office."

Yamamoto felt a chill. "Just chuck a bomb or something and make it quick!"

Gokudera seemed to struggle with himself. He wanted to draw out his kill, but he also was tired of all this violence and horrid memories and wanted to go back home. He threw open the office door and shot and shot and shot without speaking a word.

Then, after shooting a couple more times dead-blank at the corpse, covered with that despicable man's blood and bone splinters, he left with Yamamoto to go back to Vongola.

They were drinking coffee to wash down their sandwiches an hour or so later, talking about nothing in particular. Yamamoto had just succeeded in getting an amused, "Heh," out of Gokudera when Gokudera's cell phone alerted a text message.

"Eh?...Ergh…" Gokudera muttered, pulling his cell phone out of his black jeans front pocket. After reading the text fast and snapping his phone shut, he stood up and motioned Yamamoto to do likewise.

"Ah!…It's from the Tenth. He wants to have a brief talk with about tomorrow and stuff," Gokudera said, grabbing his jacket and pulling Yamamoto to the door with him. "See you, then," Gokudera shot over his shoulder as he speed-walked to Tsuna's office, leaving Yamamoto somewhat dazed in the hallway. "I'll call you when I'm done or something, so don't interrupt, 'kay?" Gokudera said as he rounded the corner out of sight. "Oh..Okay!" a harried Yamamoto shouted after him.

Gokudera got to Tsuna's office, or the Tenth's office, as he called it. He knew that he didn't really have to knock, being as he was summoned and as he was the right-hand man, but he did anyways before he gingerly went in. He didn't say anything, just closed the door behind him, and sat on the couch across from Tsuna.

"You called me to talk about the personal report, didn't you," Gokudera said seriously.

Tsuna nodded. "I…understand that it's going to be really hard to talk about, and you don't have to if you don't want to, but…uh…I just wanted to let you know that yeah, it's a bit different after knowing that, just as you and Yamamoto are different, but it's…not bad, alright? I just want to make sure that you're actually okay with it, not just acting. The report you gave was so…cut-and-dried, if you understand me. I would like to actually hear the whole story from you, personally."

Gokudera nodded. "This'll take quite a bit, so, no offense, but can you not say anything for a while? I need to gather my thoughts on this one."

Tsuna nodded silently.

A couple of quiet moments later, Gokudera started slowly opening up. "Well, it was Takeshi's b-day, as you know, and we were just wandering around and got lost. After a while, I started getting suspicious, I was hearing things, and even alleyways aren't that deserted, you know? But just as I was getting that idiot to shut up, these goddamned snipers shot us with sedatives. I took the brunt of it, cuz I know I can take being drugged better, but those sedatives… I think they must be a secret formula just developed, cuz I've been exposed to most of everything, and I've never felt like that. But anyhow, that's how we got captured,"

Gokudera finished off his introduction. Gokudera had been staring at the floor the whole time, purposely avoiding Tsuna's gaze. He looked up to get a reassuring nod from his boss, and so he went on.

"When we came to, we were locked onto this cell-wall, and these people came in. This got confirmed later on, but they were the head of the family and their officials, and I had my suspicions by the way they acted. They knew that we were Vongola, that's why they did it. Well…I started cussing them out, and so they decided to take me, you know how it goes with torture systems."

Tsuna nodded.

"Yeah, and they were just ordering me to tell where the Vongola base was, and I refused to tell, so it started out as just flat-handed hits at the start, but then they got worse when I kept on refusing." Gokudera looked up.

"You know, Tsuna, I've been in situations like that before, so I was physically hurt and all, but I could detach my mind from it. When they brought me back from the session, Yamamoto, that bastard was just in that cell twenty-four/seven, would always take care of me, and they saw that. They knew that the torture wasn't really affecting me, too. And…that it was mostly because he was there with me…So…so they went extreme."

Gokudera stopped dead. He didn't know how he was going to get the rest of the story out. Tsuna didn't press him. Gokudera finally decided that he would stop running away. It was fine between him and Yamamoto, anyways. This was part of the final healing process.

Gokudera looked at Tsuna straight on as he slowly and painfully started telling the rest.

"I'd been warning Yamamoto that they might start torturing me in front of him, and one time, it looked like they were going to do that. They didn't take me out, and they all came in. They drugged us again. They had to use these really strong and long-lasting drugs just to move us from one location to another. When I got up, I was…chained to the bed and he was locked to the opposite wall, still unconscious. And then…there was this speaker and camera, you see, the captor was outlining to me what was going to happen. Told me that my strength was depleted with the aftereffects of the sedative, told me that _he_ was injected with, with an extreme form of aphrodisiac. And then, _he_ was just…set loose on me."

Gokudera violently broke eye-contact and bored holes in the floor. His face was flushing angrily with the memory and he had to use all his willpower not to smash something. He started speaking faster.

"When I came to, before him, I just felt so…broken. Everything was so numb and I was so hurt…he didn't remember. And I just…felt like I was going to snap every time he was so much as around. He…got quite a shock when he found out. I didn't tell him. I just…was having a fit and told him to go watch the video recording…and he did, the fucking idiot, and then that was that."

Gokudera's shoulders were shaking as he struggled for breath. When he calmed down, it seemed as though he had let his hatred go.

"They tortured me the normal way after that. They couldn't risk the Vindice rules any more than they already did. It was so much harder, but I wouldn't tell. And this time, when I was so physically broken I couldn't even have flicked a finger to save myself…Yamamoto was just as scared as I was. Neither of us wanted to know what would happen if we forced contact. But when I was hurt, by that time we had learned to just barely tolerate the facts, it was like a leap of faith. Everything after that, it was just a continuation of everything before."

Gokudera looked up, startled to see tears running down Tsuna's face.

"Tsuna…Tsuna, you…"

Tsuna, with something like an anguished cry flung his arms around Gokudera. Gokudera felt the tears coming himself at the sight of his boss feeling for him, but he kept them back. He was going to finish this. When Tsuna had calmed down and they had calmed down again, he continued.

"We had a row when we got back…on the first day. I…I should be locked up, saying things like that really… I apologized later, and you know I don't generally do that, but... you would think that I could just let some things go…I was stressed, though so..."

Tsuna realized that Gokudera wasn't really telling him this, but just thinking out loud.

Tsuna did the best he could, by nodding and saying that things would turn out alright.

Gokudera quietly said, "I should go…and, uh…I'll make sure to straighten everything out."

Tsuna nodded. He was relieved and he trusted Gokudera to make things okay.

Gokudera opened the door.

"Ah, finally! Gokudera!" exclaimed Yamamoto, who had been waiting in the guest room across from the office door. Tsuna saw how Gokudera quickly flashed a smile, conjured up so quickly and yet so genuine. Yamamoto hugged Gokudera for no reason except that he was glad to see him, making Gokudera squirm and struggle out of habit.

Pulling away but keeping a grip on Gokudera's shoulders, Yamamoto exclaimed "Ah! Let's go somewhere!" Gokudera tossed his head, a smirk on his face.

"Feh, to your place this time." Tsuna watched the two peacefully.

Gokudera went to Yamamoto's place for the first time, marking a landmark in their relationship, and they spent all night together just being, never physically touching, but bonded spiritually. It wasn't until they fell asleep chastely, carefully apart but on the same bed, fully clothed, that they gravitated toward each other.

When they naturally fell apart as they slowly and lazily woke up together the next morning, they had no recollection of ever having that physical contact except for the last traces of warmth which had somehow been left behind. Nothing exceptionally stunning happened during that day, which they both appreciated, and so they just spent the day lounging around, socializing with the other Guardians and associates and just hung out like they would have done in their younger days.

They were officially ready to start regular daily life again.

**Wowzer. Finally.**

**Well, hope you like how this is all going so far!**

**There are no more chapters in this particular story, but Gokudera's and Yamamoto's relationship will continue in my other story and sequel, "Straightening Out." **

**Some reviewers/messagers pointed out to me that they were a bit confused as to exactly what happened in Gokudera's and Yamamoto's relationship after all this (that was sort of the point, to cut off mysteriously in a moment of peace, but anyways) so I decided to write more on their relationship but in a different story. **

**Just a few little pointers about the sequel, "Straightening Out." **

**-Gokudera and Yamamoto are not immediately going back to being 'friends-and-sort-of-lovers' and/or picking off their relationship from what it used to be after they got captured. I am trying to write realistically, and real victims who suffer such traumatic experiences would never be able to do that. It takes a load of time.**

**-Since I am very much interested in psychology, I have somewhat inadvertently made Gokudera into some sort of psychological marvel and mystery. He will not be exposing himself alla sudden (that would be incredibly out of character of him), but he will be less of a secretive person. (Towards Yamamoto, at any rate.)**

**-Yamamoto will suddenly have acquired a lot of sense and a whole lot more empathy than he displayed in this story (not that he already wasn't), but he is still the Takeshi we know...only better. He will score quite a victory with Gokudera in "Straightening Out," something which he has not quite managed to do so far.**

**-Those of you who turn queasy at the thought of death and other rather unpleasant themes might not like the suggestive conversation that the two of them will engage in the next chapter, but don't worry, because now, the hurt is going to start to end and turn to comfort. Nothing bad will happen to them.**

**-This is the last point about "Straightening Out." If you have any issues, please message me/ review, and I will take your opinions seriously into account. Depending on how well your argument is and how reasonable your logic seems to me, changes will be made. **

**Review this story, please! And please read "Straightening Out" if you liked this story...if you didn't, try it out anyways.**


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